From “Ike and McCarthy: Dwight Eisenhower's Secret Campaign against Joseph McCarthy” by David A. Nichols:

Sensing the chance to gain more headlines, [Joseph] McCarthy terminated his honeymoon and rushed back to take charge of the Monmouth investigation. Once back, he rolled out sensational charges every day. He was free to emerge from closed-door hearings and tell the press anything he wished, accurate or not, knowing that reporters would report whatever he said.

And it's still going on, Danny. In today's newspaper, it's still going on. 

Last night, for example, this was a headline on The New York Times' website:

This turn of events is astonishing. Sessions was Trump's first ally on the national stage, the man who backed him from the beginning, and who was rewarded with the power of the office of the U.S. Attorney General. And now? Most suppositions, mine included, is that Trump wants special counsel Robert Mueller fired for extreme competence, but Mueller's ostensible boss, Sessions, can't, since he recused himself from the Russian investigations. So Trump wants Sessions gone and a new USAG in his place—one who will fire Mueller. The brazenness and lawlessness of it all is astonishing.

And yet that's the hed. Here's the question every media outlet needs to ask itself when dealing with such matters: How does the above differ from what you would get from state-run media? How are we better than state-run media? If the answer is we're not, then work needs to be done. 

Work needs to be done. He was free to emerge from closed-door hearings and tell the press anything he wished, accurate or not, knowing that reporters would report whatever he said. McCarthy then, Trump now.