Comment by revolvingocelot

I upvoted this, but it's not quite true. It's not wrong to say that the press has always incuriously reprinted the press releases of the powerful, but in days of yore there also used to be a thing called "investigative journalism", largely snuffed out now, thanks to the consolidation of media ownership. What that's done to the structure of newsrooms, the compensation offered therein, and hell, the whole mission of print media, is only obvious to those old enough to remember what local papers used to look like.