I'm listening to Dennis Prager interviewing Peter Beinart of The New Republic. Prager asks Beinart who's he's backing, and Beinart answers: "I feel like I'm a journalist, I'm not supposed to publicly support people."

While certainly I agree that he shouldn't avidly promote a politician if he wishes to be viewed as objective, that's quite a bit different than being candid about where one's preferences lie. Journalists have a completely different view of what's "objective" than all other professions.

Can you imagine, for example, if a stock market analyst were being asked what stock they personally bought, and refused to reveal that, answering: "I'm an analyst, I shouldn't publicly promote any particular stock." Of course, they offer information day in and day out which tends to promote one stock over another -- people want to know what stocks they hold because they want to be aware of possible biases. Thus, the stock analyst has to disclose potential conflicts of interest, not hide them in the name "objectivity."

Likewise, people worry that some doctors receive kickbacks from drug companies. Can you imagine how absurd it would be to argue that doctors shouldn't disclose such things because it would bias their patients' decisions? It might be considered too draconian to demand that a doctor divulge all sources of income and investments to each patient (or maybe not), but NOBODY would buy the line that he or she is protecting the patients' interests by not revealing possible conflicts of interest.

So the modern journalist's highest ideal of "objectivity" is precisely what's considered "corruption" when applied to other professions.

Instead, I believe if a journalist wants to be viewed as credible they should admit where their biases lie, so that their readers know how to compensate.

The New York Times, for example, has Linda Greenhouse covering abortion. Yet Greenhouse has marched and given speeches in favor of unrestricted abortion. According to the Times' own guidelines, it is the speech and public activism which is the problem. But I believe that if she were prevented from doing such things, her biases would still remain and still influence her writing.

So I consider, oddly, Air America to be, in some ways, more ethical than the New York Times. Both have the same political bias, but nobody listens to Air America for "just the fact's m'am" because they're at least up front about their political alignment -- whereas the Times constantly pretends its biases have nothing to do with its news coverage -- despite clear evidence to the contrary.

And of course, the "fairness doctrine" seeks to limit speech by people who have admitted their biases (Air America, Rush Limbaugh), but put no limits whatsoever on those who have similarly powerful biases but pretend otherwise (Linda Greenhouse, Tavis Smiley, Dan Rather, etc.). That kind of legislation favors the sneaky and self-deluded (Greenhouse has said her views on abortion are mere "statements of fact") and harms the honest and forthright.