Just for starters, you don't get to be Ken Griffey Jr's pal when you're more worried about your readers than the people you're covering.
The primary motivation isn't "getting a reputation" so a writer can be promoted. Uncomfortable writing tends to cost a guy like Baker more support than it gains them.
Rem Acu Tetigisti!
It's akin, I suppose, to a tightrope walker. That which pleases the crowd and secures the popularity necessary to profit thereby -- is also precisely that which is most hazardous to one's own health.
This is not to equate 'pleasing the crowd' with false reporting or the negative sense of 'muckraking'. A tightrope walker is, in truth, at hazard when he takes a step -- simply because that is the nature of his chosen profession -- he is defying gravity to his peril (especially when inclement weather is at hand). So also is a reporter, when he brings truth to light that others find uncomfortable, or would wish to remain in darkness. He is at risk of stirring up a storm of reactive discontent in both the subject of his revelation, and the reader who identifies most strongly with that subject.
Gravity, like the negative aspect of human nature, is consistent. I have a healthy fear of both.
*grins*