I would say they've always been emasculated, i.e. limited by what they thought the public would accept. In the Howard and early Rudd/Gillard years the media was always pro-nationalist since the public wouldn't tolerate wokeness at that time, then the woke element became emboldented as they started finding more butthurt recent migrants, who came in under Rudd, to run stories on. Since then they've been importing American wokeness and running with it as though it's somehow relevant here.