In this week’s Editor & Publisher column I discuss the murky intersection of journalism with activist bloggers and social networks. 

For better or worse, journalism is inherently fused with technological evolution and this alignment will have redefining implications for young journalists. Thanks to the emergence of new publishing platforms and online communities, professionals are now aligned with amateurs as full-fledged participants in The Social Contract 2.0. In this new contract, the traditional role of journalists as arbiters of ideas and facts will blur with the often agenda-driven activism of bloggers and social networks. … Read more here.

As I recently argued in this HuffPost piece , objectivity is an impossible, admirable standard, but it is possible for good journalists to achieve a sufficient degree of fairness in their reporting. One of the great advantages to news consumers in the MSM-Blog Hypbrid Information Age is that we have access to different levels of credibility. We can expect professional journalists to approach the news with balance, and we can expect bloggers to share their knowledge through their unique lenses, like a never-ending Op Ed section featuring topics of consequence to kitties and knitting circles.

In either sphere, however, there is always going to be abuse and agendas. Reading Carr today, I was reminded of a couple perfect examples of this that appeared in my RSS reader this morning.

When I was visiting Chicago last summer, the rage was all focused on CBS Channel 2 reporter Amy Jacobson, who ill-advisedly spent a day at the home of a source (who was considered a suspect in the case of his wife’s disappearance) in her bathing suit while on the job. Phil Rosenthal reported yesterday that she has now filed a $1 million lawsuit asserting that the news station had humiliated her when she was "one of the best in the business."

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports on a group of irate readers of the eclectic community site, Boing Boing, who are angry that editors recently removed 70 old posts by a contributor called Violet Blue. As one commenter quoted in the Times report put it:

“I have much respect for all of the BB editors, but this really does seem hypocritical … How is this any different than a sitewide filter to remove any reference to a particular phrase?”

According to the Times, the editor being challenged responded by saying it wasn’t some sort of "weird cover up," but a personal matter. She was quoted as saying, "it seemed natural to make the decision … None of us confer. We don’t have specific beats. There is no process in which posts are approved.”

Obviously both of these instances involve judgment calls, and as Carr noted we expect our news organizations to act in the public interest. But what is the public supposed to think when it’s no longer clear what good judgment is, or rather, who is responsible for it?

In the case of Jacobson, the inappropriate actions are fairly clear cut, but the others are murky. There are plenty of red state Bible thumpers who think Roger Ailes is a prophet of the truth, exposing the liberal agenda, while the New York Times fact checkers can’t even get basic facts straight. Their corresponding blue state hippies would feel their stomachs churn reading Carr’s quotes from reporters giving a single iota of credibility to O’Reilly and Co. by boasting of their positive relationships with Fox News (until their pictures get tampered with, of course!). Those who would defect to the blogosphere in frustration with MSM can’t hold their communities responsible because in the realm of online publishing, you can always take it back with a hearty JK.

The aforementioned advantage we retain, however, is the ability to be interactive news consumers on all levels. You don’t have to passively consume what is provided to you. Most stories have a writer’s e-mail address as well as comments sections. It’s up to individuals to keep things in check by voicing expectations and seeking out a variety of news sources to form a well-informed opinion. The truth is in deciphering the collective story.

I’m glad they raised the question because it is worthy of consideration. Theirs would be a great argument if it weren’t for three things.

First, there is no such thing as an objective journalist. There are many who try hard to separate their opinions from their reporting, and they serve an important and admirable role in our society. But no one can deny their knee-jerk reaction to observing an event or interviewing a person. You can write around it. Editors can neutralize it. Through the consistent publication of various perspectives, media outlets can present fairly balanced story lines over time. You cannot expect reporters to be disaffected by their experiences, and neutralizing their instincts may actually be a hinderance to their ability to asses The Truth.

Secondly, The Truth is inherently subjective and the rise of the agenda-driven liberal blogosphere is proof that revealing one’s bias and engaging in thoughtful discourse is a more complete way of keeping citizens informed. HuffPost and Co. may be in the business of advocacy platforms, but it can be argued that this process is more transparent for users. We don’t have to rely solely on some Metro editor’s ability to manage beat reporters and scour PR Newswire, Reuters and the City News Service in order to disseminate a daily dose of The Truth. We can incorporate it as one of many sources of information, which now includes the ability to hear directly from power players in the blogosphere. We still need that Metro editor as our middleman because he’s a smart guy with a lot of context to contribute to our collective conversation, but it’s more likely that journalists miss the power they had over the filtering process. It borders on insulting to presume that the general public cannot separate the nuances of a blog post and a New York Times story.

(And I’ll reveal my own biases before I deliver this last one. I was apparently so high on Obama Crack after briefly interviewing him on the 2004 campaign trail for The Chicago Tribune’s RedEye edition that I quit my day job, started babbling about Hope and ran freezing all over Iowa knocking on doors on his behalf in January. Oh, and I wrote about it on The Huffington Post. Here and here and here .)

Finally, if the media loves Obama, those glowing stories were certainly nowhere to be found last fall during the reign of Hillary Inevitability. All of last year while my pals and I were pounding the pavement and predicting his victory we were scoffed at like a group of adorable political neophytes. I could scroll through my Inbox and find the dozens of stories sent to me proclaiming that OBambi (or whatever Maureen Dowd dubbed him) had no chance, citing poll after poll with double-digit HRC margins.

I was standing in the front row of that speech in Iowa on Jan. 3 with all the die-hard staffers and citizens who made it happen, and on Wednesday morning when all the journalists proclaimed him the next Kennedy it made me a little sick to my stomach. Too afraid to acknowledge the grassroots movement he laboriously built in those early states and the millions of dollars he was raking in prior to standing at the podium that night, it was suddenly SuperBowl Tuesday and everyone wanted to go to Disneyland with the country’s new MVP. Obama (who still has his name routinely misspelled like everyone’s favorite terrorist) had to work around this country’s media to get where he is today.

Perhaps the better question is not whether journalists are dangerously enamored with Barack Obama, but why the media is insistent on perpetuating the same old angles when something new is happening in America.