Personally, I think we're being slowly boiled.
That just distracts from the actual causes of problems, and actual ways to solve them. It mistakes failures on outcome for flaws in the system. An example: I am fundamentally opposed to the PATRIOT act and warrantless wiretapping. But I don't think it was passed because the Military-Industrial complex controls congress. I believe it was passed in a completely legitimate way by democratically elected politicians voting for something they actually believed in. I also believe that at the time the PATRIOT act would have received overwhelming support from the public. I just think those congressmen are idiots, and the american public is largely idiotic enough to deserve them.
So it doesn't help screaming obscenities at NYT and WSJ reporters. You have to make your actual case to actual people to change anything.
There is – conspiracy theories notwithstanding – no such group in the west. Sure, there's propaganda, but they can't write the article themselves. They have to work journalists using the same methods as corporate PR instead of faxing over the article they'd like to see.
Are most journalists supporters of the status quo? Yes, of course – because they're a product of that status quo, i. e. society. If you grow up in a western country nowadays, and you get some perspective and your mother didn't drink too much while pregnant, you can't escape the conclusion that despite all flaws, the current system is pretty much the best we've had.
journalists don't ask "the big questions" in every article because we've achieved a level of stability and safety where "asking the big questions" is a losing proposition: Just like I would not agree to have 10% of my genome scrambled, I don't take anyone serious who wants major changes in "the system": the system is sufficiently optimized to make entropy more of a risk than a chance, and even if we may be caught in a local maximum, I'd rather try a bit of hill climbing than subjecting my life to a risky exploration of state space.