Some thoughts on how the socialist left should think about media/press, both in terms of our attitude to the “MSM”, and the development of the movement’s own media, a propos of... well, check the TL.
Firstly, we need to junk conspiracy-theorist attitudes to the “MSM” and replace them with a rational understanding of the role of the media/press in capitalist society. Their role is absolutely ideological, and different media institutions have different ideological slants...
...but suggesting “the MSM” is a relatively homogenous entity engaged in a wilful project to lie and misinform is a mind-rotting conspiracy theory. Some sources *do* tell lies, but extrapolating from that an attitude of default refusal to believe anything “the MSM” says is wrong.
The ruling class needs news and information too. It is not in the interests of, say, the Financial Times or the Economist to “lie”. This article gets it about right, IMO: workersliberty.org/story/2011/06/… 
This article also makes many of the points I’d want to make on this topic: theclarionmag.org/2017/04/06/six…
Next... the question of which publications/outlets left-wing or labour movement leaders should give interviews to or write articles for. There’s no absolutes here, it’s a matter of judgement, in context. (Although I think the Sun should be considered beyond the pale.)
It’d be a ludicrous act of de facto self-censorship for a Labour leader, trade union leader, or MP, to refuse to engage with the “MSM”. The question is what you use the platform to do.
As for “alternative media”, well, again, it’s not homogenous. I think something like Novara or New Socialist is qualitatively different from, say, The Canary or Skwawkbox. And Russia Today and Press TV, as broadcasting arms of authoritarian regimes, are something else again.
In general I’m not for an absolute “boycott” of any outlet (the Sun excepted, and I think you’d have to work hard to convince me it’s ever appropriate to go on RT or Press TV), but there’s also no compelling reason to give lengthy interviews as part of a platform’s fund drive.
Finally, the positive question of what kind of media/press an effective socialist movement needs. In my view the model should be something like the Daily Herald at its best: defiantly “rank-and-fileist” in its spirit and a space where different tendencies could debate.
If publications (digital and physical) of that type were combined with educational efforts on the model of the Plebs League, which produced its own magazine, you’d be somewhere closer to building the kind of discursive intellectual culture an effective movement needs.
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