A careers officer who visited my school was horrified when I told him I wanted to become a reporter.

Screwing up his face in disdain he said: “Journalism is a rough old trade and I would strongly advise you against it.”

The Fleet Street of those days in the early 1960s was a fiercely competitive place full of rumbustious reporters and tough news editors.

My careers officer was not alone in regarding reporters as the lowest of the low.

Half a century has passed with little change as the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World has made only too clear.

It has tended to blur the good side of journalism as exemplified by the two reporters who uncovered the Watergate disgrace in America and many who have died in wars.

One of those was Nicholas Tomalin of the Sunday Times, a paper now in the same stable as the News of the World. But even he described the attributes of a good reporter as being a plausible manner, rat like cunning and a little literary ability.

Most people, including the majority of reporters, are outraged by what has been discovered so far about the News of the World and there are more revelations to come.

But I find some of the sanctimonious drivel being written about Rupert Murdoch and the News of the World almost as revolting.

I never had much time for that paper in the 1960s when it specialised in court stories about randy Scoutmasters, naughty vicars and paedophile choirmasters before moving on to the recent obsession with bed hopping celebrities.

While I have never met Mr Murdoch, I do not much care for his ruthless business methods.

But without his brutal stand against the print unions at Wapping, there might not be many papers left, including his own.

He has also kept The Times going at a loss, paid his staff well and shown a touching loyalty to print in these difficult times for newspapers.

Some of the critics are no angels themselves.

As for the public, they made the News of the World the best selling Sunday paper in Britain by buying it in their millions.

There is also the world of difference between the red tops and the broadsheets which still supply a good display of quality journalism.

Even g reater is the divide between the national and the regional press, including papers such as The Argus. Local reporters live and work in the area. They are part of the community and are there because they like it. Hardly any local papers have an agenda beyond providing an incisive and entertaining mix of news and features.

Few ever express a party political view.

I have been offered much money to put stories in The Argus and even more to keep information out. I have always without question refused these blandishments and so has every other reporter I know. We have been threatened with physical violence, actually attacked and scorned for pursuing our profession. We have not indulged in any illegal activities to get our information. We are hacks who do not go in for hacking.

No one would pretend we are angels or that we do not make mistakes. But we are generally a decent bunch of people whose reputation is being dealt a blow by the activities of others.

Some sickening hypocrisy is being shown in the current scandal. Critics who dined at the Murdoch table are now ready to lambast him when times are tough for his companies. A few who were afraid of him have only now plucked up the courage to say what they think.

Many calls are being made for tough measures to deal with errant papers, including giving more powers to the Press Complaints Commission. But the more restrictions are applied to stop unscrupulous reporters pulling out private information from tragic mothers and errant celebrities, the more they shackle genuine investigative reporting.

The unpalatable truth is that methods of obtaining information can sometimes be justified such as in the revelations about MPs’ expenses. Too much regulation can result in a supine press.

I fear some sanctions will be applied that will catch decent papers like this one as well as those overstepping the mark.

They will make the tricky task of printing information, some of it news people don’t want revealed, even more difficult than it has been in the past.

And the danger is that as a result more papers will follow the News of the World into oblivion.