Media entities could have had an internal conversation along the lines of: “This is stupid; let's cover the education stuff.” Instead, news outlets are either giving McCain evil-genuis points for turning a nothing into a something, or are calling out the McCain campaign for being mean and duplicitous, but in any event, voters on the periphery of the conversation only hear enough to hear the accusations anyway.
Right. The important thing to remember is that nobody is forcing journalists to behave this way. They choose to do so. They choose to behave in a way that benefits stupid and dishonest claims.
And they can choose to stop. Or they can choose to continue. But either way, they're making a choice.