I'm reading a rather timely book right now called Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky. They propose a "Propaganda Model" to explain why news media toes the govt line often.

The very first pillar of that model is "Ownership". As in, news media is expensive to run, so owned by exceedingly rich people, whose priorities and concerns run diametrically opposite those of working folks.

This is literally playing out today with the LATimes and WaPo.