A quote from Helen Szamuely on EuReferendum, 7 August 2006

What we are dealing with is not one news agency having a rogue photographer and incompetent editors who then try to cover their backs but a canker that has eaten into almost the entire MSM or, at least, its English language parts.

There are various reasons here, I think. One is the bias that is no longer seen as bias. The MSM tends to lean to the left and takes up all left-wing causes with gusto. This goes even for the supposedly right-wing publications like the Daily Telegraph.

They have all reached a stage when they no longer even understand that they are biased but assume that their own bias is the objective point of view. It is those who depart from it who are weird. We have seen this on matters European, on the reporting of American politics and society and, above all, the Middle East.

[...] Journalists became the ultimate arbiters of opinion and political mores. They could question any one; undermine any one; destroy any reputation. There was no higher court of public opinion. Not until a few years ago when the bloggers appeared and started doing to the media what it had done to politicians and others. My guess is that many of the journalists in question are still in shock and cover it by their grand, condescending, self-approbation.