I just don't see why you can't have actual gamers whose skill is worth respecting be the journalist. The issue is a lot of failed writers end up doing this work and those people weren't passionate about gaming or they'd be streamers or pro gamers or something instead of getting writing or journalism schooling.In a way, I don't know if I see the point in game journalists anymore. You can get so many opinions from actual gamers on YouTube that they are kind of obsolete. No idea why people continue to read and watch their stuff. I guess they are trying to appeal to very casual gamers that don't want to do the research and aren't interested in a game that plays like a challenge and just want some easy entertainment.
There needs to be a system where you get mechanical education in the genres you wanna report about and there should be a diploma of skill that you can stick to your reviews like those old gold Nintendo stickers to mark your review for quality. In South Korea they have gaming coaches so it could be a thing here too to have a specific skill barometer and have people deemed skilled enough for their opinions to hold more weight than that of the average dude.
As it is now, we're just expected to treat those people as though they have the gold sticker, we're supposed to treat them as experts. Experts! When they're below average. So when there's huge disparity between this false advertising we're being sold and reality, you have the angry reactions that you see.
As for the uber-casuals, they'd just go on twitch or on youtube and watch gameplay. They'd listen to their favorite streamer's opinion. They don't need journalism for this job. This is only useful for some hypothetical older person who is also a casual but who isn't into streaming or youtube culture at all and needs his Walter Chronkite to tell him if the next call of duty is good or not. There really are not a lot of that type of people out there.