I don't have time to reply to this in-depth, but I think that your comment actually elucidated the biggest issue, which is that this demonization and distrust of the mainstream media has conflated commercialized TV news like CNN (which, I'll freely admit, has embraced terrible framing) with actual news outlets (WashPo, Atlantic, NYTimes, etc). There is a difference between what CNN does and what WashPo does.

Also, having worked in a newsroom myself, I can attest to the fact that the firewall between sales/business and the journalists is real and strong. Not perfect, but it does a hell of a job, and is much, much better than the wild west of financing currently in the indie reporting space.