You're dead fucking wrong. The media existed, but it had only been damaged a bit by radio, which was why the mainstream media at the time was still the "newspaper of record" like the New York Times, Chicago Tribue, ect. As TV came out, it caused media to be homogenized in a way never previously seen.

You're also missing the point that most of the media were still left-wing oriented and protected Roosevelt. He had dissenters, but there's a reason the Republican party was nearly annihilated under his presidency.

Lets also not forget that Pulitzer himself was directly responsible for starting the Spanish American War under false pretenses, and that he was the president of the New York Democratic Party while doing it. "The Media" was absolutely a thing, and it killed people.