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I think one of the reasons that the media make the story about themselves when there is a spectacular failure--Katrina, Gulf War, etc--is that they fear what would happen if they didn't. If the media was seen to have no desire or ability to police itself--even if its just window dressing--then people would really start to wonder whose interest they worked in.
I mentioned the banking industry specifically because almost all of the very good regulation that limited its investments and activities occurred after a horrifying failure caused by a complete lack of oversight in activities that obviously affected the public interest. It took bank lobbyists several decades to undue that legislation, so the experience of the great depression stuck.
I hesitate to wonder what a similar conflagration would need to be for people to sit up and take notice of the media's complicity in fucking up our nation. If the Iraq war and the president's war on the constitution didn't do it, god knows what will.
