It appears that corporate sponsored journalism and a few co-opted independent journalists have become thoroughly embedded in the ruling class, and are well rewarded--it pays to serve power.
Those participating in the correspondents’ gala have long ago abandoned any sense that an independent press—once dubbed the “Fourth Estate” to distinguish it from the official government structure—should maintain a certain distance from the political establishment in order to report on it objectively and critically.
This was not a once-a-year encounter between the press, the corporate oligarchy and the political rulers, but another in the daily encounters in which they work together, make money together, and, in many cases, sleep together. They share the same political assumptions and personal ambitions.