A couple weeks ago, I read a very enlightening editorial in my local neigborhood paper. Unfortunately, I can't find a link to it online, but I'll try to summarize it.

The article began with the question of "what, exactly, is 'the media'?" It went on to analyze the inner workings of media outlets, such as newspapers and television stations. Since these are businesses, they operate under the rules of business. Therefore, what is their ultimate goal? It is not to deliver accurate and truthful news. It's to make a profit. To make a profit, they deliver news that the listener/reader will want to pay for. If a media outlet can accomplish this by rewriting a press release and doing some minimal background research, it's much more cost-effective than hiring someone who will actually do some real research and root out the truth. The truth is too difficult to aquire, too rare a commodity. Instead, media outlets use cheap substitutes which look and sound like real news. The conclusion of the article was that "the media" is actually the public relations industry. PR groups, through press releases and various spokespeople, are the actual producers and suppliers of the information that we know as "news."