If you're doing it for the love at that point, then it's not about the money and no argument can trump ethics and standards there. I think journalists spend so much time reflecting on others that there is little to no self-reflection. Just because your boss asks you to do something stupid, doesn't make it okay to do it.

If you're a soldier in the military and you carry out an unethical, illegal order, you're not only still going to get tried for it but you have the legal right to deny that order. And that's a job where you're already expected to maybe kill people for your government.

But while I'm glad that the military holds higher standards of ethics than most of the rest of us, the job of a journalist can be one with the potential to lead men to war. Ethics are just as important in your job is just as it is in theirs. Your tools are just as powerful and can equally be used as weapons.

One question, you touched on this earlier, but do you think there is an oversupply of journalists? There seem to be many blue checkmarks on Twitter who write “analysis” for weird websites I’ve never heard of.

I donate monthly to ProPublica because they put resources into investigative journalism and apparently pay their journalists pretty well. I wonder how many ProPublicas we need for a healthy journalism industry.

Journalists aren't the root cause of the state of the media, but they aren't unwilling victims either. It's like working for a land mine manufacturer. You're not responsible for the concept of war existing, but you sure are contributing to suffering.

I generally like Thomas Jefferson on the topic:

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knolege with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies. The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain little more than authentic papers, and information from such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his own reputation for their truth. The 2d would contain what, from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment should conclude to be probably true. This, however, should rather contain too little than too much. The 3d & 4th should be professedly for those readers who would rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they would occupy.