[conservatism_IS_compassion]

It is nominally a scandal for journalists to be secretly coordinating their questions. Because we need free and independent presses, not merely a free press.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Wealth of nations, Book I, Ch 10

But learning that there is only one press rather than competitive presses is only nominally a scandal. After all, the presses have been “associated” since the middle of the Eighteenth Century. That is when the Associated Press was formed - and when a continuous 24/7 virtual “meeting” of journalists was established via “the wire."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

since the middle of the Eighteenth Nineteenth Century