Yes, it is sad that you are sometimes severely judged from day one because of the reporter who came before you even though you cannot remember what her name was, just that people never said anything nice about her, just that her appearance was shall we say slovenly, and had evidently done a very lousy job so obviously you could only do better than she, and all her sources are calling you with crazy stuff and you just want to hang up the phone or at least be able to tell them that they do not pay your salary and what makes them think that you were supposed to be their mouthpiece when actually they never have any facts or real story ideas to offer, just some weird opinions about how much they hate them, nothing printable, but then you learn that your editor wants you to take them seriously, which is actually ridiculous, so you really can't say what you really think about anything, and you have to use at least something of that, because your editor has a different idea about things, so ultimately the only thing that really matters is the paycheck at the end of the week, because otherwise you have no control. It's just a job.
So just because the trend in journalism has been to abandon objectivity generally speaking, that does not mean that is a good thing. But I digress.
