That they have a primary goal of pushing an agenda is made manifest by FOX's abrupt termination of coverage of a meeting between President Obama and the GOP when it began to show Obama in a sympathetic light. Name one example of another mainstream media outlet being this institutionally cynical.
https://mediamatters.org/research/2010/01/30/fox-cuts-away-f...
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/kja25r/the-daily-show-with-jon...
MSNBC cropped video of the only man open carrying an AR-15 outside one of Obama's townhalls to hide his race (he was black), and then used the cropped footage to immediately launch into a discussion on whether armed protestors were "racially motivated". http://www.mediaite.com/tv/busted-msnbc-caught-dishonestly-e...
CNN's Chris Cuomo falsely told viewers that it was illegal for regular citizens to go online and view the Wikileaks documents, and that is was only legal for CNN to view them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-beYBLrkNAg
CNN also abruptly terminates interviews and silences microphones when guests calmly start providing different opinions or news from what they want their guests to offer.
Terminating Congressman Collins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbA5RE9eK08
Compilation of many other CNN cuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdYRN8Clddw
They even silenced Bernie Sanders for a minute after he made a brief joke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSBBaM1GCyY
Are you serious? You broadly profess the journalistic integrity of multiple institutions that have been embroiled in ethics scandals and then preemptively disallow any responses as missing the point. What a disingenuous and absurd statement.
Forgive my nearsightedness, but I would argue that a prominent newspaper has serious problems, far past "slight and subtle" bias, when its own writers are secretly giving drafts and veto power to a political campaign [0]. Keep in mind I'm not defending right-leaning publications, either. They have their own set of problems. But this ironic, constant claim that left-leaning publications are above reproach or criticism is laughable. We, the readers, must always keep them honest through our own honest critiques and feedback.
[0] http://nypost.com/2016/10/11/the-new-york-times-abandoned-it... - first that popped up in Google