The greater threat to mainstream journalism is the lack of investigative journalism and even ground level beat reporting. 

The back-drop to the Toronto Star and Desmond Cole is that the Star undertook a rigourous investigative exploration of the issue. Putting facts on the table, not just opinion. Young Mr. Cole brought the human element to the story in Macleans. 

So a newspaper such as The Toronto Star seems quite comfortable with issues of human rights and equity (much preferable terminology over 'identity politics'). Investing the considerable time, money and labour into an issue such as police carding and continued beat coverage at the provincial, municipal and community levels should not be diminished. 

Perhaps some of the problem is that many young journalists from diverse backgrounds are more interested in telling us their opinion with a photo on the column than do the hard, nearly anonymous, slog of objective reporting. Access to opinions is, if anything, in surplus.