Arguing about what is a "profession" and what is not is exactly the sort of thing that journos should not be good at.
It's an unnecessary discussion.
As a journalist, your work is out in public every day. Your hits and your misses follow you forever (speaking of which, Cloudster, you must be older than dirt too - was that the occasion where a rowdy GE engine salesman called H***y St******her was being a useful source?).
There may be journos who manage to consistently fake knowing what they are doing, or use style and flash to paper over weak reporting, but they are few and far between.
And, by the way, everyone has to learn. A lot of the impetus behind this thread is from people who haven't quite twigged that, on a Saturday afternoon in August, you're not going to find Woodward, Bernstein and Bob Hoover shooting the breeze in a British newsroom.