>>The real point is that people in this country, for some reason, believe that in the past, the press was neutral. That's never been the case and, in fact, in many ways, it's closer to neutral today than it used to be.
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>I believe there were times when it was worse than now, probably during the robber barons, prohibition and maybe few other eras. My doubts as to whether it's that much better now.
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>>I think what confuses people is that there used to rules regulating broadcast media that required them to provide equal time on political issues. That gave an illusion that the broadcast media didn't have a political POV. Those rules are gone (and have been for some time) and never applied to printed media.
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>And that's what I meant by being dependent on the business. When more money could be made by printing the news than by printing ads, there was sensationalism and other nasty things, but it made sense for the publisher to keep biting equally on all sides. The moment the ads started bringing in more money...

It used to be normal for candidates (or their supporters) to purchase newspapers.