Under Thumbs

Claire Standish: What's bizarre about you?
Allison Reynolds: He can't think for himself.
Andrew Clark: She's right
--The Breakfast Club

Attraction between rulers and intellectuals (including their intelligenstia media channels) is unavoidable. Rulers figure that they can rule more effectively when their policies are supported by 'experts.' 

Intellectuals think that they know how others should live, and having the ear of rulers provides them with an ideal channel to do so. The government pay and associated perks aren't so bad either.

Thus, rulers employ credentialed experts who will tell them what they want to hear and tell citizenry what rulers want the citizenry to do.

Why does such a corrupt system work? Because rulers assume citizens generally don't think for themselves. And when they outsource their brains to experts, citizens are under the thumbs of rulers.