Yes we have the NSA and stuff spying, but they don’t control anything.

Most media in the US simply parrot the state department line. Not even out of a conspiracy or anything, but because the US government is very often the only "realiable" source of information for media outlets on a lot of topics. Since corporate media is lazy and tries to report on things asap, they also tend to copy each other a lot, often to hilarious results. I can't count the number of times where have tried to dip deeper into a story looking at multiple articles only to find that most news websites are simply using the exact same wording as each other. If you look for primary sources, you will often find entire media spectacles built upon just 1 shaky primary source.