This is how propaganda works. What is sad is that some journalists never learn (that what happened to Assange can also happen to them) and when they finally get it, it is too late.
"News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising."
I've seen a lot of them. On some topics especially when audience don't have access to the ground truth, they(zesty activists disguised as objective journalists) are majority. This lead to a big gap between the perceptions on the same topic among different groups of audience and each group consider the other one are brainwashed.
The difference between activists and advertisers is: the later are knowingly try to sell something while the former thought they are telling truth which make the hidden activists more deceptive.
That's exactly what journalists do - newspaper editors are senior journalists.