I actually think the opposite is true. TV did not exist in the same way 50 years ago, so journalists played a more important role in transmitting news.

Maybe you mean that those journalists were more specialized than the writers of today?

It seems that there may have been more journalists in the 1970s (when we consider people who call themselves reporters and work in 'news').

1972 - ~39,000 ( https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/occupational-outlook-han... ; a great resource to find out about what journalism was like)

2022 - ~17,000 ( https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes273023.htm#nat - search for Newspaper, Periodical, Book, and Directory Publishers. If you want to add social media companies one needs a reasonable way to discount media streaming services. At any rate, this doesn't match what was being done in the 1970s so it's immaterial to your argument)