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in any given news cycle, it is quite likely that Washington's prevailing political and media interpretation - at least on the Democratic side - is being hatched on these calls.

This is a clear conflict of interest. But it is more than that. It is a clear violation of journalistic ethics.

“Journalistic ethics” belongs squarely in scare quotes because wire service journalism is utterly corrupt.
There is no reason to marvel, or take unique umbrage at, Democrats colluding with journalists against the public. The Democratic Party is after all nothing but the political wing of (homogeneous) wire service journalism. George Stephanopolis didn’t stop thinking like a Democrat when he became a reporter; if he stopped thinking like a Democrat he would not be welcome in the ranks of reporters.
"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices." - Adam Smith
The AP newswire is a continuos “meeting” of “people of the same trade” of journalism, and the result of that 25/7 “meeting” - lasting as it has for a century and a half - is the utterly corrupt journalism which has existed in that state since memory of living man runneth not to the contrary. The absence of ideological competition which is implicit in the slogan that “all journalists are objective” frees journalists to do what comes naturally - slander American society precisely as the Democrat Party does.
The Democrat Party gets its PR advantage over the Republican Party by the simple expedient of pandering to journalists, in the confident expectation of return flattery. American society believes in liberty and in progress of, by and for the American people. Journalists/Democrats believe in progress by government. Journalists/Democrats reject the idea of progress apart from government.