How desperate can we get to 'break' stories?

Journalism has gone to the dogs.It's disgusting to see journalists lifting stories, fabricating quotes, searching websites early in the morning to look for stories in the remotest of websites so that they can pass them off as their own by the time the sun sets and appear on the front page, or any page, of the newspaper the next morning.And coming from a person who's done all this himself, it's disgusting.Right now, if I look back, and think of the time when I once got fired because I lifted a 1995 feature and tried to get it published under my name in 2001, or the time when I couldn't get a minister's official quote after trying for days and days and eventually fabricated it myself and quoted 'someone anonymous', or when I just couldn't be bothered to find out thinking "after all I know it's happening, so might as well just write it", all of it just sounds so YUCK.I used to defend myself saying, "Why should my story be held up because a dumb minister refuses to come on the phone to give me an official quote which won't even change anything about the story, except that it's 'complete'" or "If I know it's happening, as a journalist, I should be given the right to tell people about it without needing any quotes (mostly because in certain stories people refuse to be quoted or just don't say anything)" or "Journalism has been around for years. Millions of feature stories have been done. It is impossible that a story idea hasn't been thought about and executed. So why i can't I search the Net for stories, steal the story idea, and then do the story in my own way?"But now I think about it, and wonder, why was I so desperate anyway? Where was the need to be 'the best'. The maximum it would have got me was probably a better job with a better salary. I really woulnd't be eating gold instead of rice and daal!Certain 'jharnullishts' that have been embarrassed by some bloggers like Jai Arjun Singh (http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2004/11/whorism-in-film-writing.html) andone Manish (http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/001528.html) are just ruining the entire purpose of the profession.I am so glad I learnt to give up the four evils of life - Greed, Envy, Anger and Ambition. It really helped me know who I really am, and where I want to be.Like there is a line for everything, there is a line you have to draw to how succesful you want to be and to what extent you will go to to achieve what you may have dreamt of.I drew that line, and found content in the smallest and cheapest of things.Far away from my own country, where I ran away from trying to hide from myself, I found myself. But I still see news websites back home trying to sensationalise the smallest of news and making it so huge. It repulses me to be assured that Journalists suck.And journalism in India is by far the most unprofessional act of 'work' that takes place every single day.As once part of the same community, I assure you, there is n ot a single journalist, who has not fabricated a quote or sensationalised nothing into everything, without thinking what it would do to the person they're writing about.The most disgusting example I can give is about the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, in which revelations after years and years of her murder revealed that she was "an easy woman and slept around", and newspapers in India ran banner headlines saying that. The woman is dead for crying out loud. She can't even defend herself. She has a nine-year-old daughter. What would she think? How would she live?As a matter of fact, I even doubt things will ever change in India where journalism is concerned. They're just a set of mediocre human beings, who can't write to save their life, who have absolutely no knowledge of the issues they cover (For Christ's sake, they give an Intern BOOK REVIEWING as the first beat! Like hello!), and all that matters to them is to 'break' a story. That's how tiny their goals and scope of achievements are.Anyway, I'm banging my head on a wall... only my head will break.