News media has always included cultural commentary. You could argue that it should be unbundled from "hard news" but history doesn't really support that argument.
'It is what it is' is far from recent. My wife has been saying it for 25 years now, and it's a standing joke in our family. It's kin to 'wherever you go, there you are' and 'que sera, sera' among other similar phrases, many of which were popular in the hippie era.
