Yoshie, does the pope pray? Journalism is mental prostitutions in which power barons/owners are pimps, and journalists and editors are the whores who do the tricks. That is the universal law of the mass media everywhere. I can tell you the same story from 1970 or 1981 in Poland - while the protesters were fighting the riot police, the media were showing cartoons and playing music.
They key word in mass media is "media" - they are nothing but conveyor belts for the propaganda manufactured by their owners. Most journalists are too stupid and lazy to think critically - and those who do quickly find that such skill cab be a deriment in their media careers. Even if some countries tolerate the so-called "independent media" they do mainly for window-dressing purposes, to create an illusion of the diversity of opinions in public discourse.
Distrusting the mass media and despising journalists was the Media 101 which I learned on the streets of Gdansk at the age of 18. This was a more valuable lesson than all those mass media classes I later took in college and graduate school.
Wojtek