Fundamentally, 'journalistic ethics' are shorthand for a check on the high priests of journalism abusing their authority in a society with high information transfer costs. Essentially, editors are supposed to look out for the public welfare, because the public is unable to speak with a coherent voice, or even with any voice at all. Like many innovations meant to address a problem caused by certain technical constraints, the practice has become important in and of itself because it is of benefit to the (relatively) small number of people who are now the 'insiders' of journalism.
The technical constraints for the public to speak on analysis and certain types of news gathering have been lifted, but the cultural practice institutionalizing the insiders remains nonetheless.
The thing is, news isn't one-way. As Jeff Jarvis says, 'news is a conversation'. No one, least of all powerful editors of publications and media outlets with webs of conflicts of interests (like being friends with powerful political figures), has a monopoly on truth. The participation of many voices in a community is the best way of approximating it, however. The reason the first amendment is important is not because it's fun to speak out, but because it's imperative to allow for critical discussion of all aggregated power centers. 'The media' is the single most powerful aggregated power center in our society, and its habits, so ingrained as to be seen as natural law, are considered sacrosanct by individuals like those at the CJR Review Desk who have trained their whole lives around them. Indeed, self-rationalizing systems, like the cultural habits of journalists and editors who tell me that when they are being criticized that means that they are just doing their job (which thus inoculates them to legitimate criticism).
You see, I called the Mike Silverman at the AP about the Nedra Pickler incidents, and he was angry and dismissive about the criticism. He could not sustain the idea that his authority structure would be challenged; the CJR desk, though I like them, still thinks that there is only one way to criticize journalists. Bloggers are a different breed; we are citizens who talk about what we see. Modern journalists, by contrast, are a strange production of an economic system of high capital costs for broadcast media; they are intermediaries, and, like intermediaries who require a radical reevaluation of their profession, they react extremely defensive to their potential obscolescence.
Ironically, it is not journalism per se that is outdated; it is one-way journalism. It is people like the CJR campaign desk, or CNN, or the RNC, who will have to figure out that media is moving away from 'and that's the world' broadcasting to a facilitation of a conversation. You don't have to get it right anymore the first time, you just have to be willing to listen. 'Journalistic ethics' as they are currently constructed lead to dishonest coverage, and I find it amusing and disappointing that the CJR Campaign Desk is willing to look at all media mistakes except those that lead to the problems that justify CJR Campaign Desk's existence, the ingrained journalistic and editorial habits that cause horse race coverage and not an honest showcase of the facts and realities of what is actually going on.
I find Jay Rosen's Pressthink much more important than CJR's attempt to mediate what is ultimately a broken system which creates political bosses out of media figures (this is why Nick Confessore's article on how there is no Democratic Establishment is nonsense - there is a strong DLC-aligned political establishment, it's just called ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, etc, though the DLC is more a product rather than a cause). At the Blogging of the President, we are trying to describe the process of transformation that is hitting all of these organizations, including the CJR Campaign Desk. While I don't agree with Markos's rationale, I do think that the larger point of what he's saying, that he's facilitating a conversation while they are acting like a bunch of Lieberman-like scolds of the relatively disempowered, is entirely valid, and that the CJR Campaign Desk, which started after bloggers had proven the value of what they are now doing, has absolutely no leg to stand on. At all.
I will leave you with an email I received from Steve Lovelady of the CJR Review, which I submit shows the depth of the arrogance of what they are doing. This was prompted by an email I sent Steve criticizing him for his shallow rejection of blogs, and pointing out that he's scared of his readership (which is why they don't have comments enabled). His answer is instructive, more for tone than substance. His lack of sourcing, self-importance, and journalistic self-pity come through quite colorfully.
[Blogs are] not all the same; but maybe 88% of them are all the same----a handy recipe of innuendo, spin & PR, undercooked and then slapped onto the Internet without a care for accuracy or accountability.
I'm always amused when residents of the blogosphere accuse mainstream media of self-satisfaction. In fact, mainstream media are wracked by angst and handwringing and undergoing a major identity crisis, one that has been written about at length ------while the blogophiles are busy congratulating each other for being such fine fellows, all in a closed loop, and righteously denying that they too have an obligation to serve the public interest.
In other words, the common wisdom as to who is smug and who is not has it exactly backwards (as common wisdom so often does).
We'll be continuing the debate today.
Glad you're enjoying it.
Steve Lovelady
PS - We're working on putting together a sort of Comments feature----but it won't be open to every lunatic on the planet who thinks he has a bright idea. When you do that, you just contribute to the static.