Arguably the process began with Andrew Gilligan's celebrated "sexing up" broadcast about the "dodgy dossier" on Iraq in 2003 and the key event was the resignation of BBC chairman Gavyn Davies following the publication of the Hutton Report early in 2004.
Forget the fact that Gilligan has largely been vindicated and the policy in Iraq shown to be a catastrophic mistake (something ministers don't bother to deny in private any more).
Davies' well-intentioned decision to resign to spare others unleashed a bout of soul-searching in broadcasting, which left its establishment completely unprepared to cope with successive (and unrelated) problems involving everything from racism on Big Brother to fraudulent phone-ins.
Now, at the annual broadcasting love-in known as the Edinburgh Festival we have 'Newsnight''s Jeremy Paxman questioning the very purpose of television and the BBC's licence fee (although not his chunk of it) while elsewhere we have ITV's Michael Grade threatening dire consequences for those involved in the pursuit of profit ahead of ethical behaviour (unfortunately his predecessor Charles Allen is now happily ensconced in a new radio company and so is beyond Grade's vengeance).
In the meantime, we have Channel 4 promising to cut back its schlocky reality portfolio (although the cynics would say this has more to do with falling ratings than ethics) and current BBC One controller Peter Fincham (a prime member of the new Notting Hill broadcasting establishment) twisting in the wind as he waits for the verdict on his Queen documentary gaffe.
What will the politicians make of all this?
For the most part they're keeping their heads down, leaving it all to that young Mr Richards at Ofcom to get them out of a hole. Unfortunately for them, Ed is not yet officially in charge of the BBC so that's another problem.
Politicians know all too well that being seen to be censoring the media (as opposed to curbing it by other means) does not look good on the CV.
From time to time, you get the odd backbencher or retired ministerial maverick shaking their tiny fists at the media (we had one such select committee backbencher on the 'Today 'programme on Bank Holiday Monday threatening YouTube with dire consequences for showing "gang" videos -- YouTube owner Google didn't even bother to show up).
But new DCMS secretary James Purnell will, if he is wise, keep his head well below the parapet.
Young James had a decade in gestation still to come when the famous Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial took place in 1960 but he'll probably have read somewhere the notorious remark by prosecuting counsel Mervyn Griffiths-Jones: "Is this the kind of book you would wish your wife or servants to read?"
Righteous indignation in the cause of control of the media usually reads badly after the event. Sometimes, as in the above case, it is greeted with instantaneous gusts of derision.
As things are now we're left with the worst option. Broadcasters are left to their own frenetic and unconvincing devices to try to re-order their own houses while all their opponents need to do is turn off the funding taps. Paxman has said as much.
If Gavyn Davies at the BBC had stood his ground -- as his armour-plated predecessor Sir Christopher Bland undoubtedly would have done (no doubt sweetening his position with a rapid if inconsequential apology, "bit early in the morning that report, young Gillers probably had a hangover") -- then a strategic retreat would not have turned into the rout it has.
All organisations make mistakes and big organisations tend to make rather more of them. Everybody, especially politicians, knows this.
But when the flagship broadcaster, in this case the BBC, publicly loses faith in itself, then cock-ups become crises -- everywhere.
It's going to be jolly hard for broadcasters in the UK to turn back the clock.