Isn't that the exact lack of effort you complain about? The real problem is that wtf are you supposed to say to someone you don't know? Whatever that comes out is meaningless because you have 0 to go on. That's the point. It's a starting point.
No on minds someone that is weird and quiet. The weird and noisy is a problem. Try keeping to yourself (it's hard, I know) and let your work speak for you.
In my experience, this has definitely not been true. People will assume you're being standoffish even though you're just minding your own business, just aren't a very talkative person, are focused on solving a problem, etc.
If you're trying to "play the game," you'll probably be better off (in some sense) spending less time on work and more time being affable.
This is a stereotype of journalists I have not seen confirmed. Most journalists I know are happy to admit when they are wrong, if it means they are closer to the truth.
I know a few myself. To the point of having real conversations.
Those who are working for smaller shops, or who are freelancing are in a very different place than people working within or dependent on the big media machine.
What beat you cover matters too. Some topics come with more permissive norms all around. Contrast social issues with economics and foreign policy. How much agency one has to both report in an investigative sense and be questioned varies widely.
There is wrong, as in not adhering to the orthodoxy and or established narrative, and there is wrong in a factual sense.
There are also taboos.
How many stories have you seen written from the labor point of view, or that question the growing Washington Economic Consensus, or even recognize it, for example?
How often do you see major league corrections? Where are they placed, why?
If you are reading overseas, indie, freelance work, you have seen some, and often the work is clear, solid, easy to understand.
Side note: Investigative work is particularly troublesome right now, and where it is unorthodox, is being actively suppressed to an increasing degree.
And I want to be clear here!
This is not saying people in journalism are bad somehow, nefarious. No, they are working in a highly consolidated media environment, or they are out in the cold working hard to do the job, despite considerable pressure.
Secondly, the entities they work for really do not want those questions at all. This may well be the more significant force in play.
Doing real journalism these days is hard work that does not pay well. While that has generally been true, consolidation, which just got permission to contract even further, has made all this more difficult.
Access journalism is a real thing too. Ask the wrong question, despite it being one very large numbers of people want asked, and boom. Gone. No access. Gonna need a new gig and potentially have it covering a new beat.
Often, we see steganography more than journalism because of these things. People pointing that out in comments gets conflated with people being idiots, trolls and asses and it all gets shut down.
Finally, old media is more like broadcast than it is Reddit, or even Substack.
In broadcast, nobody actually cares to ask what people want, nor is there any real two way dialog. It is broadcast, focus grouped, researched all to the nines, very little actually being done ad hoc, or even outside advertisers interests, which are often the media entity interest, which makes it the journalists interest, or conflict of interest depending on where they are at personally.
There are facts and there are opinions as to what those facts mean.
Journalists who enjoy sufficient agency see it like you say and have no problem with critics.
Many do not have that agency, and the entities who employ them much prefer broadcast rules and norms where their authority comes from size and position not so much performance. And those people will do what they can, but will also admit it often isn't much.
"Access journalism". I feel the same about most reporting about non-public tech companies. "If you play nice, we give you a good 'story' (really PR) to print. If not, get lost."
In Japan, "access journalism" is also a serious problem with political reporting. But to be fair, so is the United States, but more subtle / less obvious. Example: Can Fox News really get a long-form interview with President Biden? (I am not trolling.)
A third is to come out with a lot of nonsense all the time so people don't really differentiate the important lies. I've noticed that technique in certain well known politicians.
"In the United States of America, (where polygraph testing is a growth industry) the admissibility of lie detector test results is determined by courts and legislators on a State by State basis.
In the Federal legal system, test results are inadmissible as substantive evidence. Whilst some States have allowed test results in criminal trials, States such as such as California have prohibited the admission of such evidence unless all parties consent to its admission."
