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promote ourselves and our own interests.

Kind of a hard wired human trait.

My point exactly - if you assume that journalists are not the paragons of virtue which they present themselves as but rather are selfish and cowardly, you can understand their behavior far better than if you try to start with an ideological assumption that "they say that because they are liberals." No, they say that because they are self-centered and cowardly, and the result is what gets called "liberal."
Because they are cowardly, they have no interest in fighting a fair fight with someone else who "buys ink by the carload." Far better to cooperate - "I'll call you objective if you call me objective" - than to take up the challenge of actually trying to be objective. Do that, and first thing you know you will find yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to point out that the emperor isn't even wearing BVDs.
Cowardice and self-centeredness explains why journalists criticize not only the "capitalists" who provide our food, clothing, shelter, and fuel but also the police and military without which the socialist's beloved government could not exist as an effective institution. The defining characteristic of the target of the journalist is that they are competitors with journalists for the respect of the public but

targets are vulnerable to journalistic attack because they do not buy ink by the carload, and
targets don't defer to journalists when journalists (inevitably) project their fantasies onto the reality in which the target functions under a bottom line discipline.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

Leadership, the philosophical tone that is set, comes from the top in all organizations. The underlings, in accordance with their own desire for self-preservation/advancement, generally fall in line with that tone.

In print journalism that would be the publisher, then the various editors, and then the actual "journalists", those who have the most to gain by pleasing the hierarchy.

The publisher should be motivated by profit, or at least be cognizant of it as a necessary byproduct, and in the beginning I am sure all were. As success gets passed from generation to generation, each existing on the financial success provided for them by their predecessors, the profit motive often gets lost, especially in today's environment of a move to the left that has been steadily building over the last 80+ years.

From there we get into the psychology of those who support lefist causes despite its history of suppression and failure and the phenomenal success of the system they are trying to replace, a constitutional republic practicing free enterprise.

It is easy to understand the selfish desires of the hardcore left whose ambition is power at any cost but they are the minority. Harder to understand are the useful idiots, a term that describes those who actually believe the lies of the hardcore and are the majority, the cannon fodder of the hardcore. That includes all who call themselves liberals, whether in or out of politics, and it certainly includes all Democrats (other than the few Zell Millers).

Also, rest assured that the hardcore left in other countries, and some like George Soros in this country, willingly provide the money to replace the profit needed to survive by some organizations.

Ted Turner is a good example of a useful idiot who inherited a fortune and, though he increased it, uses it to further his own downfall. The Sulzbergers are another example and there are many others.

Fortunately, the same thing, human nature, that makes free enterprise superior to other economic systems, is also what eventually brings down those other systems which try to suppress and replace it. That is what we are talking about here, human nature, and it is always the underlying constant.

As a result, the internet and talk radio are replacing the old media who have become so afflicted with the above.

However, we must be in constant combat with the left and their lies and tricks (election fraud). It is truly a battle between good and evil, lies and truth, freedom and slavery. That is true whether we are talking about the Democrats, the Communists, or the Muslim terrorists.

Your focus, cic, on the broadcast media is appropriate but that is is only one of their tools, although the most powerful tool available at the moment for influencing the masses.

In addition, they are turning our public education system into madrassas which produce non-thinking and ill informed adults who are predesposed to hate America and embrace socialism, the intermediary step toward tyranny. Trial lawyers and leftist politicians combine to cripple our industries, all for their own selfish reasons. The unions are a Communist structure by nature and exist for the benefit of the union leaders and to further cripple our industrial base and increase the costs of government. They and the trial lawyers a re also a rich source of funds for the leftist politicians.

If the Democrats regain power, you can rest assured they will come after the internet and talk radio under some guise of fairness. Their true purpose will be to regain control of the flow of information in order to silence dissent. It will be just a milder form of Saddam's cutting off tongues but it will have the same effect.

The Campaign Finance (so called) Reform was another step in that direction. Feingold pushed it because he is a leftist. McCain did it because he is selfish and is trying to triangulate himself into the presidency with the free help of the media. The final effect of the CFR is to empower the media as the power broker you describe.