I don't think it is some big "Washington and the buddies" conspiracy theory, but something much simpler. Fearmongering and doomer attitudes drive clicks for ne

I don't think it is some big "Washington and the buddies" conspiracy theory, but something much simpler. Fearmongering and doomer attitudes drive clicks for news publishers. Clicks drive money. Money drives their growth and influence. Which, in turn, drives more clicks. And guess who is thrashing around in their desperate attempts to stop bleeding influence and money in the internet age? Traditional news media. Not that difficult to see some clear examples of that either, like the recent bills in some countries trying to extort FB and Google to pay money for every news article shared on their platforms (for google it was in the form of the preview snippets, for fb it was in the form of users sharing links iirc).