I remember that, when my mother was insuring her car for me to drive, we had to be very careful about my job description. "Journalist" evidently signalled "dangerous drink driver" and attracted a very high premium. When I worked on Computer Weekly, my colleagues found out that "technical writer" was the safest gambit, but that didn't quite apply to me. I think we discovered that "editor" was somehow more respectable than "journalist" (rather than indicating someone at the top of the drink chain).