Has the media always been so cozy with those in power ?

Or is this a more recent phenomena? We read about judy Miller sitting in jail because she won't tell her sources. We read about Robert Novak spreading the bullshit straight from the White House with no filter at all. We read that Tim Russert, Matt Cooper, Chris Matthews and others are questioned by a special prosecutor about their connections with those in power. How long have these relationships been going on?

No doubt, journalists have worked with sources for many years but it seems to have now morphed into something very dangerous and dark. When they feel like they have to coverup possible wrongdoing by those in the White House, something is askew. When most of their information if from those they should be reporting on, it becomes impossible for them to do their jobs adequately. They become propaganda arms of those in power. We would be better off without any media than to have those types.

speaking truth to power... That was how they got respect...
Now, not so much..

It started with FDR, unfortunately. He began the trend of granting interviews only as rewards to reporters and newspapers that gave him positive press. Thus started the trend towards the media kissing the ass of whomever is in power.

Compared journalists to those carrying brass tokens for services rendered at a "house of ill repute".

The "New York Sun" was edited by one of the bitterest cynics that ever lived in America. He had been something of a radical in his early days, and had turned like a fierce wolf upon his young ideals. He had one fixed opinion, which was that everything new in the world should be mocked at and denounced. He had a diabolical wit, and had taught a tradition to his staff, and had infected a good part of American Journalism with the poison of his militant cynicism. Once every twenty-four hours the little boy absorbed this poison, he took it for truth, and made all his ideas of it.
...The orator described the system of prostitution, which was paying its millions every year to the police of the city. The man paid his three dollars, or his five dollars, to a cashier at the window, and received a brass check; then he went upstairs, and paid this check to the woman upon receipt of her favors. And suddenly the orator put his hand into his pocket and drew forth the bit of metal. "Behold!" he cried. "The price of a woman's shame!"
...
To the lad in the audience this BRASS CHECK was the symbol of the most monstrous wickedness in the world. Night after night he would attend these meetings, and next day he would read about them in the papers. He was a student at college, living in a lodging-house room on four dollars a week, which he earned himself; yet he pitched in to help this orator's campaign, and raised something over a hundred dollars, and took it to the "Evening Post" candidate at his club, interrupting him at dinner, and no doubt putting a strain on his patience. The candidate was swept into office in a tornado of excitement, and did what all "Evening Post" candidates did and always do--that is, nothing. For four long years the lad waited, in bewilderment and disgust, ending in rage. So he learned the grim lesson that there is more than one kind of parasite feeding on human weakness, there is more than one kind of prostitution which may be symbolized by the BRASS CHECK.

First 8 chapters can be read here: http://www.teleread.org/brasscheck.htm

During the Clinton and Carter administrations, it was attack-dog mode all the time.