> So of course media corporations became bargaining chips for the oligarchs' actual businesses.
I stopped reading here.
This line shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the world and essential blindness to author’s own biases.
Media corporations ALWAYS have been bargaining chips to the oligarchs’ actual business, whoever the current politician in power is.
It's a bit ironic that I want to point people so badly to Edward S. Herman and Chomsky's work on the propaganda model to explain why the current war propaganda in the west in support of Operation Epstein's Fury is nothing new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model