I was looking for something in my archives about Alito (which I haven't found yet) and came across this (there's so much linkrot on the internet - the Media Matters link at that link is broken).
I think it's impossible to compare The Media of today with The Media of yesteryear simply. Everything is just very different, including the fact that there are almost no newspapers anymore. But one thing people forget from that time is just how normal it was to have absolutely no Democrats or self-identified liberal/left-leaning commentators at all on cable news.
And a common Meet the Press "roundtable" list was: one host, two conservatives, and one "straight" journalist. Sometimes 3 conservatives! When they did let a liberal on it was, like, EJ Dionne. Nothing against EJ but he's hardly a full-throated advocate of woke communism.
An example I found from Meet the Press, December 2006:
Neoconservative and former Bush administration official Ken Adelman.
Neoconservative Eliot Cohen.
Former Bush administration official Richard Haass.
Tom Ricks, reporter, Washington Post.
I don't remember what else was going on at that moment, but one thing was THE DEMOCRATS HAD JUST WON CONTROL OF BOTH THE HOUSE AND SENATE. Fucking hell.
Judging by the guest list, it was Serious Foreign Policy Day for whatever reason, and people to the left of Joe Lieberman do not get invited!