metastasize
That he and Mr. Begala would be allowed to lob softballs at a man who
may have been a cog in illegal government wrongdoing, on a show produced
by television's self-proclaimed "most trusted" news network, is bad
enough. That almost no one would notice, let alone protest, is a
snapshot of our cultural moment, in which hidden agendas in the
presentation of "news" metastasize daily into a Kafkaesque hall of
mirrors that could drive even the most earnest American into abject
cynicism. But the ugly bigger picture reaches well beyond "Crossfire"
and CNN.
[NYT]