Here are a couple of quotes which which show better than any comment I could make the state of career journalism in the US today. These are drawn from an article by Glenn Greenwald.
The first is from Mark Halperin, an editor-at-large for Time, on the vice-presidential selection process he habitually refers to as "the veepstakes."
Unless you have been directly involved in one of these, you can’t believe the number of calls and emails that will go from journalists to Romney campaign officials from now until the pick is made public, with pleas such as “My career will be hurt if I don’t break this,” “My career will be made if I break this,” and “I don’t need to break it, but please be available to confirm the story right away for me if someone else breaks it,”and, “You owe me.”
The second is from John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail in 1777. He would later become our second president.
Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.
If you go into the old Unitarian Church in Quincy, Mass, and visit the remains of Mr. Adams, along with those of Abigail, and his son John Quincy and his wife, you might hear him repenting.
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