Google results favoring media clickbait?

Notice something about Google these days?

It used to be that when you did a Google search for a variety of popular topics, the results would reveal gobs of independent websites, blogs, and message forums. Nowadays, such a search mostly brings up established news outlets - at a time when trust in the media is at an all-time low, thanks largely to outright falsehoods that the elitist media has published.

How did it get to be like this? Does Google actually rig its results to favor established media, thereby censoring independent sources? Or have established media outlets figured out a way to game the search results so more people click on their clickbait and are brainwashed? It has to be one or the other - or both.

In either case, it's further proof that the media needs to be broken up. If Google is rigging search results, it should be prohibited from doing so. Allowing it to do so would be like letting the phone company block calls based on content.

Major media monopolizing Google search results is antithetical to democracy, equal time, and the free press. Over at AlterNet, the greatest dream in life of some folks may be to become obedient followers of the elitist media's "experts" - but not here, because we think for ourselves.