the media operates globally because distribution is important & stories come from all over. outside of any sort of conspiracy around what the CIA could use the media to do... there are obvious operational benefits to working within the media or a similarly structured and distributed organization.
the real question isn't did the CIA stop using one type of organization or did they find ways to use other types of organizations. is the CIA doing the work? are they taking advantage of all of the different organizations that oddly have some sort of social protection similar to diplomats. whether it's NGOs allowed into a country that is just kind of hard to get into... or some freelance photographers tagging along with a news crew as they report on a country ahead of an invasion. maybe it's just the adjust professor teaching abroad as a way to monitor certain foreign CS students whose parents are high value assets and all of their labs and most definitely the final is just a way to get malicious code onto devices they're going to bring home.
the real question isn't did the CIA stop using one type of organization or did they find ways to use other types of organizations. is the CIA doing the work? are they taking advantage of all of the different organizations that oddly have some sort of social protection similar to diplomats. whether it's NGOs allowed into a country that is just kind of hard to get into... or some freelance photographers tagging along with a news crew as they report on a country ahead of an invasion. maybe it's just the adjust professor teaching abroad as a way to monitor certain foreign CS students whose parents are high value assets and all of their labs and most definitely the final is just a way to get malicious code onto devices they're going to bring home.