How things have changed, for the worse

The Herald has an obituary for Peter Scherer, their editor from 1985 to 1996. It includes:

The editorial column was the only place in the paper he wanted to see a journalist’s opinion. He was a newspaperman of an age when reporters dealt strictly in facts and quotations, not impressions, descriptions, comment, analysis or anything that could be attributed to their opinion.

Bylines were a rarity when he was starting out and if readers never saw the editor’s name in the paper, that was exactly as he thought it should be. When he retired in 1996 he said, “In 41 years, I cannot remember writing for publication in the first-person singular.”

If newspapers still operated like this today, far more people would still read them.