[pydry]

Managers manage. Nobody nudges a McDonalds fry chef into making you a burger with subtle hints of approval. They either do it of they are fired.

Journalists also do as they are told with the resources and time they are granted by capital.

It just turns out that once print newspapers died out it wasnt very profitable to engage in deep, thoughtful or investigative journalism so journalists rarely get paid for it - no matter how valuable it would be for the public.

[throwaway0a5e]

Your comparison is ignorant of the realities of managing creative output (be it engineering or writing). There are only a few ways to cook a McDonalds Burger to spec. There are many ways to write passable articles or design passable widgets. Stuff like "don't publish stuff that embarrasses our investors" is easy to validate. Stuff like "can we focus more on leading readers to conclusions we like" is far more nebulous and requires either substantial and continuous effort or actual buy-in from the staff to make much effect. Considering that the conspiracy theories about big media trying to lead us down a particular path have been more or less unfounded the only option we're left with is that the changes in journalism are a reflection of the thousands of individual actors in that profession.

[pydry]

Have you ever talked to a journalist? You cant do much investigative journalism when you're doing the same number of beats 3 people did before and are pressured to produce the same output.

The economics of writing have changed. This was something done to journalists not by them.