Main stream media in self-congratulatory mode

Main stream media is currently in self-congratulatory mode. 

The Daily Examiner 14 April 2015:

Who had the power to help reduce street violence by 40% in Australia's biggest city? Who made Queensland's Government aware of the need to protect local jobs and forced them to backtrack on allowing 100% fly-in, fly-out workforces? And who is on the cusp of significant changes to domestic violence legislation that will better protect women?

The answer? The nation's newspapers, whose influence in our society is being highlighted in a $5 million marketing campaign.

APN News & Media (parent company of this newspaper), Fairfax Media, News Corp Australia and West Australian Newspapers (Seven West Media) have combined to promote the "Influential by Nature" campaign.

It will highlight achievements that few other media are able to match; like a Sydney Morning Herald campaign that reduced drunken violence by 40%, an Australian Regional Media campaign spearheaded by the Mackay Daily Mercury, Rockhampton Morning Bulletin and Gladstone Observer that reversed a 100% FIFO stance by the Queensland Government. And the current campaign involving this paper that will likely result in new domestic violence initiatives.

APN chief executive Michael Miller, fronting the campaign for the newspaper and website publishers, said readers and advertisers needed reminding that one media was having more impact on their patch than others……

There is no denying that ethical news reporting often gives newspaper readers their first information on a social or political issue.

However, this thinly disguised marketing ploy "Influential by Nature" ignores the decline of that which it is promoting.

The barely re-worked media releases presented as news gathered by journalists, the advertorials passing as articles, the growing number of spelling and grammar errors which turn paragraphs into guessing games for the reader and, the fact that modern newspapers are now more often followers rather than leaders when it comes to social and political 
issues.