[dmix]

Well, journalism was also a good middle-class job back then. Magazines don't pay like they used to. Like upfront budgets to write a high-quality long piece.

Reading Hunter S Thompsons letters from the 60s as a freelance journalist you can tell he was able to spend time writing quality articles, with the odd hack job thrown in for extra cash. I highly doubt there are many full-time journos left like that.