Penury was a more mundane danger.

From The Invention of News: How The World Came to Know About Itself by Andrew Pettegree.

It is only with the great events at the end of the eighteenth century – the struggle for press freedom in England and the French and American revolutions – that newspapers found a strong editorial voice, and at that point a career in journalism became a real possibility. But it was always hazardous. As many of the celebrity politician writers of the French Revolution found, a career could be cut short (quite literally) by a turn in political fortunes. At least these men lived and died in a blaze of publicity. For others, the drones of the trade, snuffling up rumor for scraps, penury was a more mundane danger.