As someone who graduated from a journalism school, I can say there is a reason that journalism must be a paid profession.
It takes time to become a good reporter. You have to first learn how to write a story. What facts are important, and when they are not. The difference between factual reporting and quoted material, or speculation, that may be unreliable, contain an error, or be full-on lies, or crap.
You also have to follow a certain base ethical standard. One attempts balance, but not all stories can be completely balanced. It's not even that the reporter is trying to slant the story, because most of the time the reporter is trying to remain neutral. When one is doing a story, one might get two opposing views about the topic of that story. However, one person might give you information on that topic that is based on evidence or facts that can be substantiated or proven by research. The second person, representing the opposing view, might be just flat out lying, or making things up that aren't true to make their point.
When you interview someone in a story, what they say may not be true. What they "saw" might not be what actually happened. A reporter has to determine credibility to even decide whether to use the witness testimony, or the quote.
In stories where someone is being directly quoted or interviewed, the reporter might know the comment is a flat-out lie. The reporter might know facts that the interviewee doesn't know they know. However, based on this, a professional journalist has to be very careful how one writes the story using that quote.
For example:
John Smith says that he has never been married to Betty Jones. "I was never married to her." Jones disputes this. The Jackson County clerk's office has verified Jones' claim. John Smith's brother and sister indicate they attended the wedding between Smith and Jones.
A good reporter also has to be well-versed in a variety of subjects. They have to understand government, politics, budgeting, data analysis, law, sociology, psychology, science, business, and even how do deal with different personalities, races, and classes of people. They have to also understand nuance to some degree--how things can be said different ways and have a entirely different meaning.
After one learns these things, one also has to cultivate a variety of knowledgeable contacts, sources, and experts. Some which can be used in stories, and some which can provide background information, and will never be quoted in a story. Who to trust and who not to trust.
Being a good journalist is a skill that takes a lot of time to develop.
Then, a reporter also needs a good editor, who serves a different function. They not only rewrite the story to make it more concise, or read better. They also drill the reporter, and test the information in the story, verify it on their own, fact-check with sources. etc. Demand that the reporter back up one source of information with a second or third collaborating source.
This is simply something an amateur blogger cannot do. It not something an aggregator news site can do well--which pulls articles and stories from a variety of other blogs or websites.
We all can cite stories out out-of-town reporters that swoop into town to write a story, and then refer to Mayor Sly James as the Mayor of Kansas City, Kansas, or refers to KC as a "former railroad center."
