By journalist do we mean poker journalist?
Most publications are heavily subsidised by site advertisements. I doubt many of them are free to bite the hand that feeds.
Almost all stories of substance are uncovered by players and broken on forums.
Most poker journalism resembles music and sports journaliam: puff opinion pieces, advertising by proxy, lame questions and listmanias. It has its place as infotainment but expecting that industry to break stories that rocks the establishment is like expecting the 3am girls to uncover the next watergate scandal.
Most poker magazines rely totally on advertising revenue don't they? I have never bought a poker magazine in my life. Is it actually possible to pay for them? I thought they were just free in cardrooms. I have never seen them in a newsagent etc for sale.
PokerPlayer was 100% paid for when I edited it. More subscriptions than newsstand sales, but a decent number of those in its heyday. Genuinely no idea on current numbers. But it was still hugely reliant on advertising as are 99.9% of all newspapers and magazines. Doesn't mean they can't be objective.
That said teddybloat makes a very good point. It's ridiculous to expect entertainment-focused sites or magazines to suddenly start doing in-depth investigative reporting. That's not why they exist and that's not what the people who write for them are trained to do. In fact in many cases (poker websites in particular) most of the writers aren't trained at all. They wouldn't really know where to start.
You also need to remember that there are quite draconian libel laws in this country so you need to be absolutely 100% certain of your facts before reporting anything or you can get yourself in all kinds of legal trouble. Even then it's still a huge risk. And dedicating the time and resource to that kind of reporting is a resource-heavy and expensive thing to do.
/derail
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