I've read the same thing about newspapers in England. There were always upper class folks hired directly as reporters -- Winston Churchill for one -- but a lot of the reporters started out as errand boys in the print shop, or mail clerks in the office. It was very possible for a 15 year old school drop out who went to work for a paper to become a reporter, and not impossible for one to end their career as an editor. But by the 1970s, new reporters came exclusively from the ranks of university graduates.
The curriculum of journalism schools these days is a cross between the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf.
“Lie for social change” is the mantra.