I'd argue that slightly more than half a century ago, journalism was largely a blue-collar job with blue-collar attitudes done by working & middle-class people. They saw the job as their responsibility to hold public figures to public account.

The prestige journalists chased all of these people out and many of the factors that appealed to them are still there (getting a platform to push your views) but it turns out those appeal much more to ideologues than those who want to write well in a paper with others who write well.