This is it right here. Most people are comfortable using the Times as a high quality news source, in spite of it's role in manufacturing consent for the Iraq war under false pretenses.

The bad behavior isn't the problem, the problem is that the current power players in media are now having to compete with Hungarian content farms and it's cutting into their market, with the added industry wide damage that the content farmers don't give a damn about covering their bad actions with good PR.

As much as people like to pretend otherwise, the mainstream media is still has reputation to maintain and a history of credibility or lack of credibility.

These are features alternate media outlets don't have concern for. They aren't driven by a subscription model based on whether or not they're generally accurate; they're based on an advertising model utterly detached from the nature of their content.

How do you define "mainstream"?