This has always been one of the reasons they normalize. @RyanLizza says Obama's speech was about "something that is frankly difficult for political reporters who are used to litigating policy and political disputes between the two parties to convey in a way that seems unbiased."

Another way to put it: Simply to state who he is and what he's doing sounds like your being biased. Sounds that way to journalists, I mean. It's been true since the beginning, but good to have it said by a reporter who covers politics. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/20/obama-torches-trump-like-american-democracy-depends-on-it-399108

I wrote about this in September, 2016:

"The image of two similar parties with warring philosophies that compete for tactical advantage positions the mainstream press in a comfortable way: between partisan players as chronicler, questioner and referee." https://pressthink.org/2016/09/asymmetry-between-the-major-parties-fries-the-circuits-of-the-mainstream-press/