I don't think it is a conspiracy to say that there is a large self-selection process going on in news that starts with ideology. A person has to pick whether they want to report for HuffingtonPost, Slate, or Breitbart. There isn't a conspiracy because there doesn't have to be one, people self select into their respective hive minds essentially. On your other point, the idea that the average person in news is an unbiased accurate reporter is laughable.

That kind of reporting is almost a niche genre at this point outside of small town papers. Everyone now seems to have a very obvious agenda, and the consumers seem to mainly want news that fits their own agenda. Again this isn't a conspiracy this is just the direction that the market forces took news into. A polarized ideological consumerbase, wants news that matches their polarized politics.