most news organizations are now run by large corporations whose goals are 1) profit, 2) grow, 3-8) lather-rinse-repeat, and 9) maybe do some investigative reporting now and then for fun. just to keep our hand in, y'know.

but a tiny bit more seriously -- in order to be anything like a responsible reporter, one needs to know *how* to be a reporter of the news in the first place -- how rare are people who have that skill getting these days? and where are they going?