I've been in the print media industry for a decade now, as an editor. I've focused, the entire time, on presenting the news I felt readers would most be interested in reading. I've never been threatened by a lawsuit, probably because I insisted on rigorous fact checking and therefore didn't libel anyone.

Consistently, the biggest problem in the normal course of business is people who try to get spin, or even outright lies, published. These are usually people who consider the news "advertising by other means" and are actually just trying to sell a product or service by, for instance, creating a scare over a competitor's product or service.

I've pissed off more than a few industrial moguls in my time with my approach, and some of them have canceled their subscriptions, but my bread and butter is the majority of subscribers who apparently are, according to our renewal rate, getting what they want to read.

If there were some pervasive pattern of corporate influence, I would have noticed by now. The only pattern of influence I see is the interests of subscribers.