Journalism in the UK is all about selling papers and to do that the journalist himself has to become the centrepiece of the article , the story is secondary.
Its about getting the attention they either need or at least feel they need to stay in a job that will give them other opportunities in other forms of media to increase their profile.
In short many journalists need to become the celeb's they often write about and feel should be given the status that they believe these celeb's enjoy.
Many years ago you would never see a picture of a "journalist" or see a newspaper journalist on television or hear him on radio or the net or any other form of media than is commonplace now.
They are no longer journalists and view themselves as celebs and therefore often live in an imaginary world of fantasy like the people they "write about" and its how they want to be looked at by the public at large.
Often many of them fall into the same pitfalls that the downside of temptation offers celeb's and is much easier to access for them than the person who goes to watch their film's or watches their matches they participate in etc