It's a pity Journalism doesn't pay well. Like politicians - we get the journalists we deserve.
In the 80's Journalists as a group were tainted by that left-wing ideology that mandated that anything corporate or private enterprise was greedy and worthy of derision. It was a silly time but at least the general community good was the perceived ethos.
Now we have come full circle. Journalists are mere self-serving mouthpieces for the corporate entity that looks after them the best.
Simple fact: reporting favourably to Qantas or any other corporate monolith opens the possible of future employment or nice little back-handers now or later in life. Isn't it lovely when Journalist X checks in for our family holiday to NZ that he gets a business-class upgrade or lounge invitation?
Unions cannot offer that dangling carrot.
But biting that carrot relegates any Journalist or Politician to mere prostitute and denies them of any credibility whatsoever. Having said that, it would take a determined individual to resist the siren call of corporate benevolence.
The same applies for politicians of both persuasion (like the Howard Goverments' Transport Minister whose name escapes me but was known as The Minister for Qantas). And what an embarrassment Marn Ferguson is. A one-time union official now doing all he can to undermine the aviation unions. Is a board-position is in the offing?
And whilst we are all fickle (it takes one small pro-union article for all and sundry to hail Journalist A as the only unbiased aviation reporter in Australia) how can we compete with the filthy lucre that corporate giants lure journalists and politicians with?
Sitting in the retirement home, such "journalists" cannot hold their head high, they have forsaken any credibility with the endnote that appears something like this:
Journalist A travelled to PPRune courtesy of Qantas.