Yes, "they" as in the media at large. I don't know what you're trying to get at with your quotation marks. Most media are corporate owned and by only a few companies. With journalists sharing talking points and share stories (remember JournaList, that was buried quick.) Now they do Slack channels, etc. You can even slowly see a talking point emerge where several large journalist accounts use the same verbiage and phrases, it's kind of interesting to watch.

It has been reported on here on HN multiple times on how a large part of the CA scandal was not actually as big as the media portrayed. The media loves to make a bigger scandal out of something then slowly backtrack it over time. It happens a lot. Scandals get clicks and eyeballs.