In a way, journalists have always had it easy. Unlike doctors or lawyers, they don’t have to pass exams to practise their profession. There is no need to have attended a journalism school. All one requires is energy, curiosity and the facility to write readable copy on demand. Stylishness is a plus, perhaps, but less important than plausible analysis and factual accuracy.
There are some national differences, to be sure. The British, on the whole, value stylishness more than the Americans, while the Americans try harder to be accurate. But in the old days, the public knew more or less where it stood. Journalists were, or ought to have been, professionals who tried to get it right. Their professional bona fides were tested by the institutions for which they worked, which could not afford to be associated with liars or crooks. The prestige of a successful journalist or columnist depended on the imprimatur of a reputable paper, and vice versa. As the FT columnist Jurek Martin put it recently, editors served as “gatekeepers” or “institutional filters”.
