At Common Dreams, Normon Solomon quotes George Seldes:
“The most stupid boast in the history of present-day journalism is that of the writer who says, ‘I have never been given orders; I am free to do as I like.'”
“Seldes noted that reporters routinely ‘know from contact with the great minds of the press lords or from the simple deduction that the bosses are in big business and the news must be slanted accordingly, or from the general intangible atmosphere which prevails everywhere, what they can do and what they must never do.'”
I will repeat that this has been catastrophic for the arts as well as every other sector of American society.