From: barondave	Date: June 7th, 2009 11:02 pm (UTC)		(Link)

Being a newspaper reporter used to be a job. Somehow, it got turned into a profession.

No, I don't think that's it. My father, a newspaper editor who (among other claims to fame) was the first person to fire Hunter S. Thompson, always said that he'd rather hire a Political Science major and teach them journalism than hire a Journalism major and teach them about political science. Sure, there are techniques involved, such as writing to deadline, that have always been part of the profession over and above the beat reporter job.

My theory, which which my father agreed, was that All The President's Men ruined newspapers. Instead of concentrating on the year or more of knocking on doors and slogging through the mud after the story, the movie concentrated on the glamour of taking down a president. Now, everyone wants to take down the president but they don't want to work for it. s. All reporters want Robert Redford to play them in the movie.

The corporate shift, with concomitant lurch to the right, is a major factor in why no one cares. Conservatives don't even bother with the facts, they just whine a lot, loudly. But that's a different story.