In the two generations since Watergate, the image of the journalist has gone from that of plucky truth-seeker to sensationalist and partisan hack. Somewhere along the way the fresh-faced idealists of All the President’s Men gave way to the dissociative anti-hero of Nightcrawler.

Corporate-driven news values? Probably. Phone hacking? Definitely. But what grates more is the suspicion that journalism is
a clique that protects its own, disdains its audience and passes off its attitudes and preferences as the neutral norm.