There is a free and independent press, but they're not the ones owned by Bezos and friends. This leads into OP's point - that you need to always be doing the wo

There is a free and independent press, but they're not the ones owned by Bezos and friends. This leads into OP's point - that you need to always be doing the work yourself of triangulating on the best approximation of the truth. If you give that up, then you're a prime candidate for manipulation. Make no mistake, there are strong and concerted efforts by very powerful organizations to control what the masses see. And you will see some dissent even within places like the NY Times, but there are real bounds to expressible thought (all the news that's fit to print). Others have covered this ground for decades a lot better than myself.