From the New York Times, July 19, 2005:

With tabloid journalism and reality television bleeding into each other, and with magazine programs indistinguishable from entertainment, films … simply assume that slime is a reporter's middle name.

The more that confidence plummets, the more likely movies are to portray reporters unfavorably; and, in a snowball effect, the more unsavory reporters appear on screen, the more that image takes hold.

The image of the flawed journalist is so widespread that it has crept into the most serious films.

From the Washington Post, July 30, 2006:

With occasional exceptions, newspaper people usually get the hero treatment in movies and TV shows.

Sure, newspaper reporters in the movies can be a cynical, tough-talking, hard-drinking bunch who aren't above cutting a few corners to get the story… But all is forgiven when they expose the truth.

Even Superman's alter ego is a newspaper reporter.

It Pays to Be a Print Journalist — in Films [Paul Farhi, Washington Post]
The Decline and Fall of Journalists on Film [Caryn James, New York Times]