Morale is not low amongst journalists because the job is tough, it's low because they're being fired all over the place, pay has decreased, and corporatism is making the whole thing pretty mediocre.
The counter-argument is probably that if it were truly acknowledged, then the pay itself would be higher. But I don't think it's the case that the average person in Florida thinks less of teachers than someone in New York. (I'm including cost of living adjustments in making this comparison btw.)
I don't disagree with the items you lay out, and maybe the ones you list are most important. But I do think "respect" belongs on the list, too.
I don't know why anyone would believe that.
What on earth are you talking about? Most major cities have had multiple papers in cutthroat competition with each other for decades. If the New York Times got a story wrong, the Wall Street Journal would happily take the opportunity to correct them and vice versa. In smaller cities with one big paper (like Baltimore with The Sun), the local tabloids (like The City Paper) would relish any opportunity to embarrass the paper of record if they got something wrong.
The era of monopolistic journalism is the new thing, not the old thing. The corporatism GP is referring to is conglomerates like Sinclair and Tribune Online Content (Tronc) buying up tons of local papers and broadcast stations and “cutting costs” by shutting down things like investigative reporting.
The local newspapers in question have terrible economics now because of the internet. The competition has come from the internet. Sinclair is dying, because they have bought a bunch of dying/dead assets. Tronc is the same. There was nothing to do here, the newspaper business as it worked previously is dead with a few exceptions.
The business is dead. The people involved aren't getting paid well, the owners are losing money, it's all bad when economics go bad.
Car manufacturers have a monopoly on cars.
Smartphone manufacturers on smartphones.
Mankind has a monopoly on creating humans.
You are clueless about newspapers in their heyday. It was like 60 years ago. No need to go around correcting people on a topic you know nothing about.
Renting time on a printing press is not exorbitant.
Buying out local printing presses (and/or getting exclusivity in return for your business), is anticompetitive and sometimes illegal, but it's definitely not natural.