Yes, it is not a news-flash that the bulk of modern "journalists" are, for the most part, low paid college grads who lack the ethical standards of journalism in which their forebears prided themselves.
But there are still plenty of serious journalists out there. Thankfully, in the Internet age, we can be choosy where we get our news.
Regarding the ethical standards of earlier generations of journalists and copying, see INS v AP, 248 U.S. 215 (1918) where INS rewrote large numbers of news articles they acquired from AP through bribery and other means, without attribution.
This is the origin of the "hot news" idea of short-term copyright, balancing the effort of the original writer with the public's need to know the news.
Don't be so sure. Many plagiarists have old-school journalism backgrounds. Last year, the "Cooks Source" editor in Western Mass. copy and pasted much of the content in her magazine from Internet sources before getting caught, and had gotten her start at The Voice decades before (see http://mashable.com/2010/11/06/cooks-source/ ). Earlier in my career, one of my colleagues was fired for lifting from Wikipedia, who was also from an old-school newspaper background. Many more examples of this.
But there are still plenty of serious journalists out there. Thankfully, in the Internet age, we can be choosy where we get our news.