Those words can have different meanings in different contexts; one can be talking about jobs and say "I'm a journalist", and mean that they earn their income through journalistm. One can also, in a conversation about hobbies, say "I'm a programmer", and imply only that they enjoy the act of programming and do it in their free time.

I think it's dangerous to set hard requirements for such labels, specially ones like "journalist". It's not a given that journalism is considered worth protecting and, while in most western countries there's a sort of public agreement that "journalists" deserve protection, this often seems to be associated more to the word "journalist" than the act of journalism itself, and taking that label away from someone may also leave them defenseless, as they no longer "deserve" the protection of a "journalist".

> The term "journalist" is no more subjective than "author" (literature) or "programmer".

It's more contentious than that. Journalists supposedly deal with "facts", but there's often considerable disagreement over facts or their interpretation. No matter your political persuasion, I'm sure there are "journalists" making a living on this, as per your definition, but who operate on the opposite end of the political spectrum from you and from whom you'd want very badly to strip that title of legitimacy.

A lot of people call themselves journalists are actually activists though.