In journalism classes, we were taught never to use passive voice just because it’s bad writing, but also for the reasons you mentioned, i.e. that it hides the actors involved.

As you correctly point out, outside of a few legitimate situations where it’s necessary, passive voice is almost always used to downplay the agency of the guilty parties. There was a time when the news could be relied upon to write in active voice to clearly identify the perpetrators, but the media’s watchdog role is being steadily weakened.

The profit motive coupled with dwindling ad revenue changes the basic relationship of the media to power. To get the “exclusive,” the media compromises itself in exchange for access. No where is this more apparent than in the media’s relationship with the police.

They run feel-good copaganda stories about cops pulling kittens out of trees and parrot police narratives. It’s never “Yesterday, a cop shot someone.” It’s an “officer-involved shooting.”