If you have money, shaping the discourse on issues of your choice is surprisingly straightforward:
1. Come up with a bunch of candidate ideas/ lines of argument/ memes that promote your point-of-view
2. Ensure maximum virality by doing things like forming think tanks to publish credibility boosting papers, distribute these ideas widely across available media, and (most importantly), gain the support of as many influential figures as you can.
These people are the ones who will do the grunt work of persuading people when the memes you're pushing come up for discussion.
After a certain point, the position you're advocating becomes (one of) the main frameworks that people think in when evaluating an issue.
But! We've all seen cases where some idea took hold without having some wealthy cabal backstopping it-- academics can be biased, celebrities can (occasionally accidentally) make something a household word, thought leaders of various stripes can seize on a pet cause without a reward ever being offered.
Sometimes, a voice from the rabble gets heard, but most of the time the stuff you get an opportunity to think about is graciously provided by either rich people or the otherwise influential[0].
However, it's scarier when wealthy people do it, because they have so much more scope to play with.
They can weigh in on any topic (through proxies) and affect the discussion, regardless of whether they understand the issue or if there's a blatant conflict of interest.
They can tamp down on dissenting voices (as we see in the article), so their position becomes the only obvious mainstream one.
I can't really offer any solutions.
You can't trust the news (or other media) because the sorts of people who shouldn't game it are the ones that will, but you also can't participate in current affairs if you're uninformed.
Okay, I suppose I can offer some solutions: become exceedingly wealthy or, if you can't swing that, become a widely influential subject matter expert on everything you discuss.
1. Come up with a bunch of candidate ideas/ lines of argument/ memes that promote your point-of-view
2. Ensure maximum virality by doing things like forming think tanks to publish credibility boosting papers, distribute these ideas widely across available media, and (most importantly), gain the support of as many influential figures as you can. These people are the ones who will do the grunt work of persuading people when the memes you're pushing come up for discussion.
After a certain point, the position you're advocating becomes (one of) the main frameworks that people think in when evaluating an issue.
But! We've all seen cases where some idea took hold without having some wealthy cabal backstopping it-- academics can be biased, celebrities can (occasionally accidentally) make something a household word, thought leaders of various stripes can seize on a pet cause without a reward ever being offered. Sometimes, a voice from the rabble gets heard, but most of the time the stuff you get an opportunity to think about is graciously provided by either rich people or the otherwise influential[0].
However, it's scarier when wealthy people do it, because they have so much more scope to play with. They can weigh in on any topic (through proxies) and affect the discussion, regardless of whether they understand the issue or if there's a blatant conflict of interest. They can tamp down on dissenting voices (as we see in the article), so their position becomes the only obvious mainstream one.
I can't really offer any solutions. You can't trust the news (or other media) because the sorts of people who shouldn't game it are the ones that will, but you also can't participate in current affairs if you're uninformed. Okay, I suppose I can offer some solutions: become exceedingly wealthy or, if you can't swing that, become a widely influential subject matter expert on everything you discuss.
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0. There's an essay by The Last Psychiatrist which is somewhat germane to this, http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/10/you_are_the_98.html