[Animats]

> Does this seem suspect to anyone else?

Yes. Things are not fine.

The trouble with journalism is that there's too much punditry and too little reporting. Newspapers used to have large staffs of "beat reporters", who went out, gathered news, and sent it in. Today, most "news" begins as a press release. Check cnn.com. Everything above the fold today started as a press release or statement from someone, or is an opinion piece. Fox News is worse.

Collecting local news is now more the job of local TV stations, because they need video.

[herendin]

>The trouble with journalism is that there's too much punditry and too little reporting.

That seems more like a symptom than a disease. Punditry is cheap, good journalism is very expensive.

[feet]

When the symptoms are focused around cost, maybe the disease is money and profit?