Why does that surprise you? I always regarded journalists as kind of prostitutes - tuning any tricks for paying clients. It is not a personalisty issue but a systemic issue - the class which controls the means of material production also rules the production of ideas, as the Old Man said.
Having said that, however, I am often profoundly disappointed by the low quality of the left discourse - its sanctimoniousness, uncritical repeating the received wisdoms and slogans, reactive rather than proactive approach to public policy, mentalist rather than materialist explanations, sectarianism. It is not that I think that left is heading in a wrong direction, but that while it may be heading in the right direction, it does so in a rather poor and boring style. Of course that is not enough to join the pro-establishment camp (which is exponentially more nauseating) - but it certainly is a wet blanket.
Wojtek