The latter. Try following western China reporters for a while. You'll notice that a lot of them are only interested in pushing non-stories that portray China negatively, rather than reporting facts.

For example a couple weeks ago they made a huge amiunt of noise about Xi being couped. After Xi showed up they simply dropped that narrative and moved on to the next hysteric story.

I've been following various journalists for years and journalistic quality seems to decline rather than increase.