To this concern, Cavanaugh responds that newspapers were never in the objectivity business and that readers always “liked the idea of investigative journalism more than the reality.”

I must admit that my visions of Woodward and Bernstein changed after I worked in a couple newsrooms and witnessed this reality firsthand. Reporters had to make concessions to advertisers and readers, offering human interest stories and celebrity gossip in exchange for revenue and circulation. But in these same newsrooms I met reporters dedicated to uncovering bad behavior and to educating readers. Reporters pore through tiresome ordinances and records and then detail their impacts on the community.

The concessions to advertisers point more to a need for journalism insulated from profit concerns than to a need for hired news.

Cavanaugh also notes that the proliferation of and access to news has exploded as the reporting workforce has shrank. And he thanks public relations. His hypothesis is based on the fact that the number of public relations professionals has more than doubled in the last decade.

He mistakes an effect for the cause. The field of public relations has contributed much to the amount of information out there. But the industry also has seen such growth just because information has become so viral.

The Internet allows for both more voices and more means of communication. The voices of the average consumer or citizen require more damage control. And more means of communication—from blogs to social networking—require more communicators.

Public relations professionals play a crucial part in the media landscape and the policy debate, but they must exist alongside journalists and bloggers in order to guarantee robust investigative reporting.