A sea change in the mainstream media?

In the last few days, it seems to me there has been something like a sea change going on in the way the mainstream media is handling political stories. One example that I had meant to blog about earlier was Tweety Bird (Chris Matthews) on Hardball last night, but I couldn't find a clip of the piece anywhere. Now, it's up at Crooks and Liars. Here's the exact quote:

MATTHEWS: I see dead people—that‘s Joe Lieberman pretending he‘s still running for the Senate. He already lost. We‘ll be right back with Mike Barnicle and Mike Smerconish.

He wasn't particularly lauditory of the Republicans in general either.

Question: Are the media finally coming around to reporting more even handedly because they realize the public hates the Thuglicans? Or, are they doing it because they want to be good reporters?

If Matthews had been following the Thuglican script, as he often has in the past, he would have told us all about how the Democrats have gone off the deep end by voting for the al Qaeda candidate.