People love to repeat this accusation, but it's true only for smallish local papers. And for them, I don't even see what's so terrible about it: agencies came a

People love to repeat this accusation, but it's true only for smallish local papers. And for them, I don't even see what's so terrible about it: agencies came about as a model to cooperate without merging, and it allowed even small-town newspapers to inform their reader about national and international events. For papers like the NYT, WSJ, or WP, every story with a byline involves a day's work at least. They read the feeds, sure. But if read carefully, you will notice (among other things) that almost every story will state that the journalist tried to get into contact with the major subjects of the story. It will either include their comment, or something like "... declined to answer/did not respond to inquiries/etc". Then, there are the magazines, like the Atlantic or New Yorker. They make up a good chunk of what's generally considered "journalism", and rewriting wire stories just isn't something they do.