The book The Stepford Wives (1972) by Ira Levin was made into films in 1975 and 2004. The housewives in the novel’s idyllic Connecticut neighborhood of Stepford were replaced by identical-looking robots, controlled by the Stepford husbands. The slang use of “Stepford” means something or someone that is controlled and moves in one direction only.
 
The term “Stepford media” has been cited in print since at least 1997 and describes media in lockstep, without independent voices.
 
   
Wikipedia: The Stepford Wives
The Stepford Wives is a 1972 satirical thriller novel by Ira Levin. The story concerns Joanna Eberhart, a photographer and young mother who begins to suspect that the frighteningly submissive housewives in her new idyllic Connecticut neighborhood may be robots created by their husbands.
 
Two films of the same name have been adapted from the novel; the first starred Katharine Ross and was released in 1975, while a remake starring Nicole Kidman appeared in 2004. Edgar J. Scherick produced the 1975 version, all three sequels, and was posthumously credited as producer in the 2004 remake.
 
The term “Stepford wife”, which is often used in popular culture, stemmed from the novel, and is usually a reference to a submissive and docile housewife.
   
Google Goups: alt.fan.regular-guys
John Crowley
9/14/97
(...)
Noticed you are working from the Press-Enterprise network.  Great, great paper.  I especially dig the stuff P-E broke on TWA 800, and then watched the Associated Press, NY Times, LA Times, etc. all play catch up like the groupthink Stepford media that they are.
   
Brian Torff
Who Will Deliver?
As appeared in The Green Mountain Jazz Messenger, October – November 1998
(...)
FM is now almost musically identical to AM, the innumerable TV channels all pretty much look like Stepford media wives, and college and NPR radio can only do so much.
 
Google Books
Global America?:
The Cultural Consequences of Globalization
By Ulrich Beck, Natan Sznaider and Rainer Winter
Liverpool: Liverpool Univ. Press
2003
Pg. 90:
AE refers to a non-existent fantasy land, not unlike Walt Disney’s model town, misinformed by corporate Stepford media and ruled by a wealthy political elite with an agenda of its own.
 
Scoop (New Zealand)
Carolyn Baker: Stepford America
Thursday, 10 June 2004, 3:15 pm
Next month, Americans will flock to theaters nationwide to be amused by the performances of Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler and Matthew Broderick in a remake of ‘‘The Stepford Wives.’‘
(...)
And now, yet another president has impeachably lied his way into a war in collusion with a Stepford media while a Stepford Congress scarcely blinks an eye.
 
Democratic Underground
terry4kerry
Mon Dec-20-04 10:43 PM
3. “stepford media”
I just don’t get it. Everyone I know is furious about election, yet you would never know. Our democracy is on the line! I don’t understand why people are not protesting and making a bigger issue of it? Why is the MSM so busy covering the same stories over and over again? Have they just become so lazy, or have they resigned to the fact that their jobs and reputation is controlled by the big businesses that now regulate the media? Are they now the “stepford media?” What is happening is frightening and we need more than zombies covering our main sources of news.
 
Tom Francois—One Conservative’s Opinion
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 2011
The Stepford Syndrome and Democrats
Stepford Democrats/Stepford Liberals/Stepford Media: Any liberal that cannot think for themselves, therefore are linked to Obama via osmosis as to think only his thoughts. They never dare oppose the infallible anointed one. One variance: The Stepford media is connected to Obama via their lips to his posterior.
 
Ace of Spades HQ
Ex-Convict/Obama Supporter: Demoralize Conservatives by Surrounding Them in the Progressive “Echo Chamber”
Posted by: Ace at February 4, 2013 06:18 PM
This is his plan?
 
We don’t get this already from the Stepford Media?