I grew up in former Yugoslavia back in 60's. And one thing that always awed me as a young man was freedom of the press in United States. Who can not remember that LIFE magazine cover photo of Vietnamese girl coming out of her village that was just burned. In particular, freedom of the press during the Vietnam war, when, from my perspective at least, it looked like as journalists in US had unlimited freedom to report anything they wanted from that war. I must say that even at that time journalists from UK seemed as they were all singing one song.
Then when war in Iraq started that perspective completely changed. Diversity in media reporting from both US and UK had dissipated and normally media outlets that were opposed to each other started sounding monolithic. And I was apprehensive on that 'monolithic' style, because I was growing up in communist regime, where 'monolithic' press was deemed normal and I had always had to make additional effort of reading between the lines to figure out what is really going on. I was just wandering what changed? Were there some new laws curbing press? We all know what happened to Julian Assange and George Galloway.
Just for a comparison here is one example of that 'unlimited' press coverage from Vietnam war era that you are free to compare with nowadays news coverage that all seems to be blowing into Ministry of Truth's trumpet: