Mentioning “journalists” in the thread title, and talking about needing ratings kinda makes an indecipherable mess out of the topic. Journalism stopped being a thing on television about the time Geraldo Rivera, Bill O’Reilly and Maury Povich came along. And lest I give the impression that I think of this as an exclusively male phenomenon, let me add Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters to that roster.
Ultimately, I blame “60 Minutes”. By showing that a television news division could be a profit center, it paved the way for the dictum that a television news division must be a profit center, ensuring the death of journalism on television.