On average, yes you are probably correct. But there were still journalists as they are today, who actually care about reporting on corruption and importing topics with integrity, however today, much like in times of totalitarian states, they have been pushed to the fringes so most readers never get to read it.

Also as someone noted, there used to be far more of local journalists in local communities. Small newspapers that knew what was happening in their neighborhood and small business that advertised their local business in the local newspapers for local community. The bakers, the restaurants, the craftsmen etc.

This was good because it meant that everyone was invested in the place they live. But with rise of technology and globalized social media platforms, the big tech and big media simply put the locals out of business, where proper investigative journalism model for locals could not be funded anymore. And so with no local journalism to keep corruption in check it only has gotten worse.

At the same time, people are more impacted and bombarded by global "news" than local actual news.

While I agree journalism was always fishy it was not as bad as it is today, unless you were living under communism etc. Today, its far worse than it was just few decades ago or even pre Trump era. Now they just make up lies as they go.

One sign of good journalism is that it questions the prevailing narrative. Common knowledge is mostly wrong because it tends to drift downstream towards simplistic narratives that are emotionally appealing. That is why whenever a topic about which you have deep knowledge is portrayed in the popular culture it always seems simplistic to the point of being wrong, full of tropes and common misconceptions.

An investigative journalist, however, should dig beneath the surface. They should talk to experts, especially those who have reason to doubt the narrative, and find out what the consensus of expert opinion is. They could also try to explain the narrative – why do people believe X when experts say Y?

Mainstream news sources are mostly politically leaning towards the left and their counterparts on the right are often just reacting to the left. So you get a kind of he said, she said noise.

"The morality of journalists (a loose term these days) have only themselves to blame for the uptick in animosity. Journalism as an industry lacks integrity yet journalist still fancy themselves as noble souls and herdsmen of truth. The whole industry is incredibly pretentious. Now every hipster with a MacBook and a WordPress account is a journalist ranting about integrity. Integrity?

Hipsters do love irony. Poorly written dredge, injected with biased opinions, financed by advertisers, and sourced on Twitter. Why should we be surprised journalists don’t want their dirt available for public consumption; why jeopardize the very profitable relationships these “news” outlets have established that ensure journalists are in the pocket of advertisers. There is a lot of money to be made, just not by reporting news." - Jordan Colaruotolo · System Security and Administration Specialist at SEC & DOJ Contractor

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Hence: "There is so much to be said in favor of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated it keeps us in touch with ignorance of the community.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read." —Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

Viva la alternative news sources. Who still actually remember what journalists ethics looks like.