I'm currently reading a novel - Complicity by Iain Banks - in which the protagonist is a journalist. Cameron Colley is a reporter on an Edinburgh newspaper who gets into a spot of bother when his mysterious, Deep Throat-esque source leads him into some very dark places indeed. Anyhow, young Cameron is presented as a kind of everyman hack.

Here are some of his activities:

Snorting speed several times a day

Drink-driving

Having an affair with his friend's wife

Obsessively playing computer games till 4 in the morning

Killing a man

And that old favourite:
Lying to his editor

Ah, nice to have role models, isn't it?