Does that bear the connotation (pretty strong in German) of being a consolidator of diverse streams from all parts of the population? (Where the suggestion is that minor parties represent specific minority layers of society.)

Thought we speak about serious journalism.

You didn't specify your poll of journalists was among "serious" journalists, so I didn't know we are speaking only about serious journalism :-) At the level of influencing people, the daily news half-hour of either channel compares to tagesschau and heute. But anyway, I could have named n-tv, too.

I think people can be made more unpolitical and conservative at the same time. At least on the economy, preaching consumerist individualism is a 'conservative' propaganda already. When things are dumbed down, and analysis is left away, what remains is often highly saturated spin. That's exactly what Berlusconi's channels are doing. (BTW, have you ever suffered channel-surfing in an Italian hotel? Worst the B effect produced the TV landscape in Europe, no contest.) IMHO RTL & co do the same, but much less overtly, much more subversively.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}