Journalists are human, of course. They are also employees, and like employees everywhere they face an immense amount of pressure from above to produce more, in

Journalists are human, of course. They are also employees, and like employees everywhere they face an immense amount of pressure from above to produce more, in less time, for less cost. I sat in a large newspaper newsroom and watched it happen around me a few years ago, when the internet tourniquet started tightening. The journalists, subs and everyone else involved in producing a quality product were at their wits end as the management tried to take us ever closer to the minimal viable product they could put advertising around. A team of 14 running five weekly papers was fired and replaced by existing labour cut'n'pasting articles from the main daily paper produced at the site. Believe me, journalists know that their once respected profession is going to hell in a handcart. But it's not their fault, and largely there's not much they can do about it. It's also hard for normal folk to see this because a very, very few writers get larded with resources, oodles of time to investigate stories, and big salaries, and these are the ones that are talked about. It is like assuming all CEOs are dishonest, earn a few million a year and fly everywhere by private jet.