Journalists from celebrity gossip reporters to foreign affairs correspondents needs to take security seriously. Even gossip journalists receive information from sources that ranges from information that would get the source fired or blacklisted to put in jail (e.g. LA sheriffs leaking celebrity photos).

How likely is it that people are exploiting zero days against reporters in any of those examples though. That's why threat models are different for different types of journalism.

Does it take a zero day when you install random freeware crapware from the store ?

Agreed. The parent comment makes a ridiculous extrapolation.

That's a fair point, although bad actors will also wait around for years for your work to become more interesting/relevant, if they think there's a chance of it.

You can get to the criminal activity or government investigation journalists through the more "trivial" journalists if they work in the same company.

Anything that will change a stock price is enormously valuable, for example.