“If they are not paid, then what are the models’ motivations? Vanity? (Now they can officially call themselves “models”. In fact, people increasingly go to law school not to become lawyers, which is basically a futile prospect, but so they can boast about their law degree when they socialize.)
“It could be the constant need in the modern world to market oneself and pad one’s vita with ANYTHING.”

Sadly, yes, this has devalued journalism (as well as the concept of gorgeous photos vs. thousands of boring posed photos).

A crucial transforming is the changing of the guard in management. If we take Thurston Twigg-Smith as an example, he sort of exemplifies a certain notion of the old brahman elite who might have dominated much of local newspapers in the past. They might have been conservative or even be nostalgic, but they were rooted in the community and had a sense of noblesse oblige. They also had talent. From the wiki:

He graduated from Punahou School in 1938 (there is a building named after him in the Case Middle School at Punahou School) and earned a mechanical engineering degree from Yale University in 1942 Twigg-Smith served in the armed forces during World War II in Europe in five campaigns. He attained the rank of captain in the field artillery and was awarded the Bronze Star. Returning to Hawaii in December, 1945, he started work at the Honolulu Advertiser in February, 1946 and as a major, started the 483rd Field Artillery battalion in the Hawaii National Guard. He left the guard in 1954 as a lieutenant colonel to concentrate on his duties as managing editor of the newspaper. In 1961 he took control of the financially ailing paper with the help of outside investors and by 1993 had turned it into a profitable operation which was bought by a regional subsidiary of the Gannett Company for $250 million.

Agree with him or not, he was just as impressive as the best in the contemporaneous leadership in the local Democratic Party, or in the leadership of the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement.

They don’t make them like they used to.

But what exactly is the new blood like in the news business?

Here is the actor Robert Duvall’s portrayal of Frank Hackett (the name is telling, like a cross between “hack” and “hatchet”), a boss at the fictional network UBS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxqkrmkhrjw

The old community elites might have been conservative, but there are worse things on the right-wing than conservatives.

Perhaps the extreme right-wing is not cautious and conservative, but macho and aggressive. They don’t necessarily have an ideology. They are simply crude, bully-boys opportunists. Now, with the changing control of local newpapers, these might be the kind of people who increasingly control political endorsements, which they sell to the highest bidder. They are attracted to politicians who smoke cigars and talk tough. They complain about ‘big government’ and the ‘sissy’ welfare state, but they like big fancy government projects that plow through and destroy things. These are not the kind of people who really have a deep or nuanced understanding of public policy issues.

If they are not paid, then what are the models’ motivations? Vanity? (Now they can officially call themselves “models”. In fact, people increasingly go to law school not to become lawyers, which is basically a futile prospect, but so they can boast about their law degree when they socialize.)

It could be the constant need in the modern world to market oneself and pad one’s vita with ANYTHING. In fact, high school students start their own philanthropic organizations just to get that noted on an elite college application to distinguish themselves from zillions of other applicants.

But does getting into one’s college of choice help nowadays? The unemployment rate for college graduates 25 and under is supposedly 55 percent, and supposedly for elite college graduates it is even higher.

One parallel is with the way some employee positions began to be replaced with paid internships in the 1990s, by unpaid internships in the 2000s, and now finally by interns who actually pay for internships since the 2010s (increasingly, only rich kids can be interns).

But is this also becoming true in journalism? I noticed yesterday that one of the stories in Civil Beat was written not by a “reporter”, but by an “intern”.

http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2012/06/01/15968-the-public-file-pro-rail-group-steps-up-offensive/

So not only is journalism becoming a young person’s game — same as it ever was — but the reporters are being replaced with volunteers.

Is the supposedly politically progressive local non-profit public affairs online newspaper Civil Beat leading the way in this way?

Say it ain’t so, Pierre!