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the most important development in US journalism during the 20th century was the emergence of a highly-centralized hierarchy, in which The New York Times and The Washington Post acquired a dominant status not unlike that of Pravda and Izvestia in the old Soviet Union.
. . . the first two questions we need to ask are:

How did these two newspapers acquire such power?

Why do these two newspapers tend to support the Democratic Party (which is not quite the same thing as supporting the left — or at least it didn't used to be)?

Quite. Indeed, to the extent that nominally independent souces of information are in fact not independent, serious issues of what would in less significant arenas of human endeavor be prosecutable "conspiracy in restraint of trade" seem to be raised.
Worse, as is becoming aparent enough to raise some comment among analysts, the Democratic Party is becoming ever less independent of this "conspiracy" - and all three branches of government is on board McCain-Feingold, which essentially codifies into law the fatuous notion that journalism defines objectivity.
But the rules which any journalist acknowledges define real commercial journalism include not only claims of "journalistic ethics and objectivity" but the deadlines which guarantee superficiality, and the "if it bleeds it leads" negativity for the sake of ratings which is perfectly analogous to the boy who cried, "Wolf!"
It is arrogant for anyone, and doubly so for anyone whose job it is to attract attention, to claim the virtue of objectivity.
The other virtue commonly claimed by journalists it courage; journalism persistently boasts of "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable." Either journalism is powerful, or it is courageous - or it carefully chooses "comfortable" enemies who are not dangerous. In fact every "objective" journalist studiously avoids challenging one particular type of enemy - other "objective" journalists.
As noted earlier, the distinction between the Democratic Party and so-called "objective" journalism is becoming ephemeral. A Democratic politician can become an "objective" journalist at the drop of a hat; a Republican is suspect if s/he dares so much as get a gig as a lifestyle commentator. But the defining characteristic of liberalism - of journalism and Democratic politics - is that nothing matters to its practitioners except PR.
Nothing at all matters to these people but PR, and that is an elitist, antidemocratic, and essentially a cowardly POV. Because the individual practitioner of journalism is afraid of the collective, and the Democratic politician defines his politics by whatever negativity is coming from that collective.
Journalism, and the rest of liberalism, is just cheap talk and second-guessing. Socialism - the advocacy of government ownership of "the means of production" - is actually a second guess in the sense that "the means of production" themselves, and most products which are produced, have been developed by private enterprises which succeeded while other enterprises failed. Socialism wants the credit for the successes, and has no interest in taking responsibility for the failures. Yet the liberals do not already own the successes because they did not know which ones would be successes and which would be failures - only time shows that.
We the people have been subject all our lives to a massive propaganda campaign to blind us to the reality that journalism and the rest of liberalism is superficial, negative, arrogant, and cowardly. IOW, that journalism is cowardly, bullying leadership of a cowardly, bullying Democratic polical "leadership." Every four years the Democratic Party nominates a candidate for POTUS - but they do not nominate a leader. They do not want a leader. At least since x42 they have been all symbolism and no substance. They'll say anything that sounds good at the moment.
Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Conservatism IS Compassion ^ | Sept 14, 2001 | Conservatism_IS_Compassion

In fact every "objective" journalist studiously avoids challenging one particular type of enemy - other "objective" journalists.

For the most part, the attack dogs used in this instance are your garden variety rabidly partisan Dims, but there have been a few attacks from the MSM themselves. FoxNews is the target of choice for the most part since Fox is percieved as a threat the "comfortable" lifestyle of the journalist country club?

Nothing at all matters to these people but PR, and that is an elitist, antidemocratic, and essentially a cowardly POV.

We the people have been subject all our lives to a massive propaganda campaign to blind us to the reality that journalism and the rest of liberalism is superficial, negative, arrogant, and cowardly.

What can I say; you nailed 'em.

But the question still remains; how did it come to this?

FGS