Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

Reuters recently hosted a panel at our New York headquarters called “Audience and the Media: A Shaky Marriage.” I was on the panel with a distinguished group: Lisa Shepard, ombudsman of National Public Radio; Andrew Alexander, ombudsman of The Washington Post; and Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor of The Associated Press. Jack Shafer, editor-at-large of Slate, was the moderator.

The key question we explored was: “How can mainstream news organizations retain (or regain) their audiences’ trust in a skeptical world where almost anyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher?” It will come as no surprise that we did not answer the question definitively in the 75 minutes we were on stage. However, a number of questions–some quite troubling–were raised. Rather than attempt to summarize all the points raised and positions taken by the panelists and the audience, I’ll explore some of the questions raised in my mind.

–Why do people mistrust the media and whose fault is it?

Much of the fault lies with the mainstream media. For far too many years, news organizations had an arrogant, one-way relationship with our audiences. We gathered news, packaged it in ways we thought made sense and shoveled it out to our audiences. If you liked what we delivered, fine. If not, well, you could always write a letter to the editor of the newspaper where you saw the story. Now I think the balance is much better. Feedback is instantaneous, transparency is the norm and our readers can also be publishers on their own.

On the other hand, much of the distrust is not our fault. Discourse–certainly in the United States– has become far more polarized and news consumers are seeking out news sources that support their own politics or world view. That makes it especially difficult for those of us who pride ourselves on being independent and free of bias. Readers sometimes see bias when a news report doesn’t support their particular world view.

Let’s remember that the idea of an unbiased and independent press is relatively new. Many news consumers around the world choose a news outlet that reflects their world view. I worry that a large cohort of news consumers now expect that–and prefer it.

–Can journalists rise above their political beliefs to provide unbiased coverage?

I believe they can, they do and they must. That is the essence of being a professional reporter.

However, we don’t do ourselves any favors when we use social media like Facebook and Twitter to express opinions on politics or policy issues, then find that we have to cover the issues we’re sounding off about. As we advise our journalists at Reuters, social media have made our public and private personae virtually indistinguishable–and we have to expect that anything we say in social media is public information. Journalists shouldn’t engage in public activity–either online or offline–that could call into question their ability to report a story fairly.

That said, I do believe that journalists can have strong political, religious and social views and still cover their beats with independence and freedom from bias. Again, that’s the essence of professionalism. The flip side is that when bias is evident, we have to expect that our audience will be vocal in pointing it out.

–Dealing with audience comments.

As someone who writes a column/blog, I have to confess that reading the comments that come in can be wearying. There are always those who use the comments section–no matter what the topic–as a proxy for delivering a political message.

Nowhere is this more evident than when I write about the Middle East. There’s a substantial number of people who will never, ever believe that Reuters journalists can set aside personal views and report fairly and objectively from, say, Gaza.

I worry that sometimes comments amount not to a discussion, but, as Lisa Shepard put it, “shouting at the television set.”

I think we’re better off having comments than not, but they are a challenge to monitor and moderate. Here are some questions to think about–and comment on! (1) Should comment authors be required to sign their real name and provide contact information that would be used to confirm their identity, but not be published? (2) Would it be better to continue to allow anonymity, but put all comments one click away from the original material; that is, provide a link that would take you to a separate comments page? (3) SHOULD ENTRIES IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS BE BANNED?

–What ever happened to the golden age of journalism?

Let me declare my true colors here: I’m a card-carrying optimist.

I’m suspicious of this nostalgia for a so-called golden age of journalism. Show me when it was. Journalists today are better educated than ever before. We have research and newsgathering tools that are far faster and more powerful. We can deliver news faster and more efficiently to readers and viewers than ever before.

In the supposed good old days–before the Internet, before the democratization of publishing–it was easier and more common to hide mistakes, to suppress stories, to be pressured by the powerful. The new transparency makes it much harder to control the flow of news in the way that presidents, prime ministers and other powerful institutions could do in earlier times.

Sure, the democratization of publishing has resulted in a cacophony of sources, with varying degrees of credibility. But that’s where we in the mainstream media have a responsibility to engage in the fray and promote the journalistic values we live by. We must continue to shed the arrogance and share the standards and values that give us credibility.

This can be the golden age.

–

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

This week brought more distressing news for journalists, as a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found the U.S. public more critical than ever of the accuracy and independence of the media.

Only 29 percent of Americans believe that news organisations generally get the facts straight, the survey found, the lowest level in the survey’s near quarter-century history.

It gets worse:

–Just 26 percent said the media are careful that reporting is not politically biased.
–Only 20 percent believe news organisations are independent of powerful people and organisations.
–Barely a fifth believe the media are willing to admit mistakes.

And news organisations have been able to do what politicians have failed at: creating consensus across party lines. Now solid majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents all believe that stories are often inaccurate and tend to favor one side.

It’s been a long road down. Back in 1985, in the first survey on media performance cited by Pew, 55 percent said news outlets get the facts straight and only 45 percent said the press was politically biased. Now 60 percent see political bias and only 18 percent say the media deal fairly with all sides of political and social issues.

What are we to do?

In the face of criticism, there’s sometimes a tendency to take shelter, keep one’s head down and hope the critics go away. But they won’t go away. And judging by the passionate and sometimes vitriolic criticisms I see in our comment sections, there are significant numbers of readers who will never believe reporters can put aside personal viewpoints and report a story accurately and fairly. You only have to look at discussions of coverage in the Middle East to see that.

The proper response, I believe, can be summed up in two words: More transparency.

That’s why we decided to make freely available to the public the guidelines our journalists live by when we published our Handbook of Journalism–and asked for feedback on it. That’s why I’m doing this job. That’s why we’re aggressive and open about correcting our mistakes. That’s why, in this blog and others, we welcome comments and debate on our work and issues in the news.

Reuters Editor in Chief David Schlesinger put it well in a recent speech, when he described journalism, at its best, as “a mirror, exposing back to society a true and brutally honest picture of what is going on.”

“When we fail at that,” he said, “when our picture is not clear or is at all distorted, we deserve to be criticised.”

At the risk of violating metaphor-overload rules, I invite you to take advantage of the windows we’re opening into our world–our Handbook of Journalism and our blogs–to tell us when you see a distorted picture or when the view is foggy. Or when it’s clear and distinct.

Judging by the dim view of the media revealed in the Pew survey, we can’t open the windows too wide or too soon.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

The first entry is abattoir (not abbatoir); the last is ZULU (a term used by Western military forces to mean GMT).

In between are 2,211 additional entries in the A-to-Z general style guide, part of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism, which we are now making available online. Also included in the handbook are sections on standards and values; a guide to operations; a sports style guide and a section of specialised guidance on such issues as personal investments by journalists, dealing with threats and complaints and reporting information found on the internet.

The handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists live by — and we’re proud of it. Until now, it hasn’t been freely available to the public. In the early 1990s, a printed handbook was published and in 2006 the Reuters Foundation published a relatively short PDF online that gave some basic guidance to reporters. But it’s only now that we’re putting the full handbook online.

We’ve decided to make the handbook available to everyone for a number of reasons. Among them:

• Transparency: At a time when trust is an endangered commodity in the financial and media worlds, it’s important that news consumers see the guidelines our journalists follow.
• Service: As we’ve seen over the past decade, the barriers to publishing have dropped so that anyone with an idea and a computer can be a publisher. But it’s also become clear that publishers have a varying standard of truth, fairness and style. Our handbook is a good place for budding journalists to begin.
• Geography: Reuters serves a global audience and the handbook recognises the cultural and political differences that our journalists face in reporting for the world. This is a handbook not just for English-language journalists in the United Kingdom or the United States, but for wherever English is used.

Many entries deal with words that are sometimes confused or misused. Turning randomly to the “H” section, we learn the difference between hyperthermia and hypothermia (The latter means “Too cold. Think that o rhymes with low” while the former means “Too hot. Think of ‘er’ as in very.”); Haarlem and Harlem (the latter is in New York City, the former in the Netherlands); hangar and hanger (the latter is for clothes, the former a shelter for aircraft); and hale and hail (the former means “free from disease, or to pull or haul by force.” The latter “is to salute or call out, or an ice shower”).

We take a global approach to the spelling of many words. Often, it’s the United States against the world. For instance, our preferred style is “artefact,” except in the U.S., where it’s artifact. Same goes for axe and axeing — our standards for most of the world — which become ax and axing in the U.S. There’s also “backwards,” which loses its “s” in American stories, and “leukaemia,” which loses that first “a” in the U.S. There’s plenty more: tyre and tire, titbit and tidbit, and defence and defense.

In the world of diplomacy, economics and academe, the G3 is Germany, Japan and the U.S.; the G5 extends membership to France and the U.K.; G7 grows the club to Canada and Italy; make it G8 with Russia; G10 adds Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. As for the G24, G30 and G77, you’ll have to look for yourself (we’ve got entries for them, too).

There are slang words to avoid (posh — though one former Spice Girl might object) and a number of common misspellings (Viet Cong, not Vietcong; ventricle, not ventrical; machinegun, not machine gun; and ketchup, not catchup or catsup).

The sports section of the handbook offers a list of sports cliches to avoid (hard fought, made history, veteran, bounce back, and icon), the difference between a field and a pitch (the former’s where American football and baseball are played), and an explanation of delight as a transitive verb that needs an object (”Marat Safin delighted Russian fans with a neat chip…not Marat Safin delighted with a chip.”). Words like disaster and tragedy shouldn’t be used in sports stories, as this devalues the significance of these words (”Losing a football match is not a disaster. A stand falling down and crushing a fan is”).

When language implies a value judgment, we must use words very carefully (cult, for instance: One person’s cult is another’s religion). The entry for “good, bad” advises: “For financial and commodity markets good news and bad news depends on who you are and what your position is in the market. Avoid them.”

One of the most controversial entries is that of “terrorism.” The entry reads, in part:

“We may refer without attribution to terrorism and counter-terrorism in general but do not refer to specific events as terrorism. Nor do we use the adjective word terrorist without attribution to qualify specific individuals, groups or events. … Report the subjects of news stories objectively, their actions, identity and background. Aim for a dispassionate use of language so that individuals, organisations and governments can make their own judgment on the basis of facts. Seek to use more specific terms like “bomber” or “bombing”, “hijacker” or “hijacking”, “attacker” or “attacks”, “gunman” or “gunmen” etc.”

This policy has been passionately debated inside and outside Reuters. As  the handbook says, “we aim for dispassionate language” so that our customers can “make their own judgment on the basis of facts.”

Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger puts it this way:

“Over the years we have been criticised for this policy on numerous occasions, when people or governments wanted us to label an incident ourselves rather than quote their views. Criticism of our policy was especially fierce when the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Reuters made the decision not to describe the attackers as terrorists, because we thought a label would not add to our vivid description of the thousands of deaths and the destruction of the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center. In the years since, as the world has witnessed numerous other attacks, we’ve chosen to continue that policy of sticking with the facts and letting our readers make up their own minds based on our reporting and the evidence we present them.”

It’s important to point out that the handbook is a living document, one that preserves rules that have guided Reuters journalists through a century and half but also one that may change when the times change.  It’s also important to note that the handbook is produced by humans who aren’t infallible — and it’s used by humans who aren’t infallible, so sometimes we make mistakes. I’m sure you’ll let us know when we do, but we’re usually harder on ourselves than anyone else is.

I hope you’ll find the handbook useful, whether you’re a journalist, a student, a teacher or an engaged reader. And we welcome your comments and suggestions.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

It’s Oscar time, and I’m again reminded of the debt Hollywood and journalists owe each other. Journalists supply Hollywood with great stories and Hollywood sometimes makes us look cool—or at least worth a couple of hours of time and the price of a ticket.

Put aside the fact that a number of Hollywood movies literally are made from the pages of journalism –“Saturday Night Fever,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Adaptation,” to name only a few, were all based on magazine stories. We journalists are also the very characters that Hollywood screenwriters sometimes love.

In addition to sometimes bringing out our cool factor—although, really, what aspiring reporter could resist Robert Redford’s corduroy suits in “All the President’s Men”? — Hollywood movies can illuminate the kind of ethical, moral and values issues that journalists have to deal with.

This year’s slate of Oscar nominees again includes a movie with journalism as its subject. “Frost/Nixon,” the film adaptation of the Broadway play about British journalist David Frost’s pursuit of the ultimate interview with disgraced former U.S. President Richard Nixon, is nominated for five Oscars.

So here is a completely arbitrary list of my top dozen movies about journalism that have something to say about the way we do our jobs–ethical or unethical, selfish or selfless. Aside from that, about the only thing they have in common is that they all were at least nominated for Oscars. I’ll also acknowledge that most of the films are U.S.-oriented, like the Oscars. So I want to especially encourage feedback and suggestions for films from all parts of the world. (A word of warning: There will be plot spoilers.)

The envelope, please.

12: “Roman Holiday” (1953)—A journalist decides that there are things worth more than getting the story– love and happiness, for example. Gregory Peck plays a struggling American reporter for a celebrity-oriented magazine in Rome assigned to cover a princess (Audrey Hepburn) on a state visit. The princess wants a taste of “real” life and escapes her handlers and falls into the arms of Peck, who sees the liaison as a chance to get an exclusive story and escape his down-at-the-heels lifestyle. Naturally, they fall in love and the princess sees just how much fun the common people can have. But Peck decides the exclusive story isn’t worth ruining his subject’s happiness as the princess reluctantly returns to her duties. Extra points for a bearded Eddie Albert’s portrayal of crazed photographer.

11: “Reds” (1981)–A journalist crosses the line from covering his subject to becoming part of the story. Warren Beatty is radical American journalist John Reed, who already writes from a strong point of view. He becomes more involved in leftist party politics, journeys to Russia to cover the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and becomes a semi-official voice for the cause, all the while engaged in a tempestuous love affair with fellow journalist Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). Extra points for Jack Nicholson’s lecherous but poetic role as Eugene O’Neill.

10: “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982)—A journalist uses his relationships with a lover and colleagues to further his career before deciding that love really is more important. Mel Gibson is an Australian radio reporter sent to Indonesia in the 1960s as President Sukarno breaks with the West. Working with a dwarf photographer named Billy Kwan (a stunning Oscar turn by Linda Hunt), his career prospers and he falls in love with a British diplomat (Sigourney Weaver), who may or may not be using him. As he gets wind of a coup, he must decide between love and his career. Love wins.

9: “The Killing Fields” (1984)–A foreign correspondent learns he can’t do his job without his courageous local colleagues and that life and friendship are more important than getting the story. Sam Waterston is New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg, stationed in Cambodia as the Khmer Rouge take over. His colleague, Cambodian journalist Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor) sends his family to the U.S. as the Khmer Rouge move in, but Pran stays behind to work with Schanberg and falls victim to the brutal Khmer Rouge. Schanberg is wracked with guilt and works to ensure that Pran also gets credit for the award-winning journalism. After they were reunited, Pran worked in New York for The Times as a photographer and died last year.

8: “Broadcast News” (1987)—A trio of sad television journalists battle over the authenticity of news and learn that style often trumps substance. William Hurt is a handsome but glib and shallow newsman who’s not above staging shots and faking tears. Albert Brooks is his neurotic, by-the-book rival whose ethics, passion and knowledge are no match for Hurt’s hollow charm. Both men are after the romantic and professional attention of Holly Hunter’s producer, whose journalistic skill and success are equalled only by her private, self-destructive depression. Will the authentic journalist and authentic love win out? Don’t count on it.

7: “Citizen Kane” (1941)—It had to be here, didn’t it? A newspaperman’s youthful idealism turns to power-mad self interest. Orson Welles’ magnificent film about the fictional Charles Foster Kane (now who might that be?) tracks the rise and fall of a journalist who got into the business to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted and dies a lonely, loveless tycoon. A great moment in the idealistic phase, as Kane talks about his creed: “…It is my duty, and I’ll let you in on a little secret, it is also my pleasure—to see to it that decent, hard-working people of this community aren’t robbed blind by a pack of money-mad pirates just because they haven’t anybody to look after their interests.”

6: “Frost/Nixon” (2008)—Journalists and politicians can’t live without each other and sometimes do the right things for the wrong reasons. In a gripping piece of drama and history, television journalist David Frost (Michael Sheen) seeks to save his career by landing an exclusive interview with former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella). Frost wants to get the scoop and make news by forcing the disgraced president to confess. Nixon wants a platform to clear his name -–and the $600,000 fee. The truth wins.

5: “The Insider” (1999)—Corporate self-interest clashes with public-service journalism—and people in the middle get hurt. Al Pacino plays an aggressive television producer who wants to tell the story of whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand’s (Russell Crowe) revelation that the tobacco industry not only knew their product was dangerous, but deliberately tried to increase its addictiveness. When Pacino’s corporate bosses become nervous, Crowe loses his job, his wife and almost everything but his self-respect. Extra points for Christopher Plummer’s complex portrayal of Mike Wallace.

4: “Ace in the Hole” (1951)—A journalist who will do anything—and I mean anything—to get the story and revive a career. Once called one of the most cynical movies ever made, this is certainly one of the most cynical portrayals of a journalist. Kirk Douglas is Chuck Tatum, a down-on-his-luck former big-city journalist who stumbles on a story of a man trapped in a cave in New Mexico. Tatum takes charge and prolongs the rescue effort to milk the story for all the headlines it will take to get him back to the big time. (“Bad news sells best. Cause good news is no news.”) All the while, Tatum is romancing the trapped man’s wife, a blowsy Jan Sterling (“I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.”).

3: “Network” (1976)—The line between news and entertainment blurs to invisibility. Released the same year as “All the President’s Men” (below), “Network” portrays journalists in a decidedly less positive way. Longtime network journalist and now ratings-challenged anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has an on-air breakdown after learning he will be fired and promises to kill himself on the air. His struggling network decides to encourage his implosion after Beale’s antics begin to catch on, billing him as the “Mad Prophet of the Air Waves.” Beale’s famous line is, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more,” but the more telling one is: “ But, man, you’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell.”

2: “All the President’s Men” (1976)—Hard-working journalists put their reputations on the line in pursuit of public good. As earnest in its portrayal of journalists as its Oscar-rival “Network” was cynical, Alan Pakula’s film focuses on journalists as investigating, crusading watchdogs. A search of the script fails to turn up any references to “ethics”, “ethical” or “unethical,” but few films about journalists portray reporters—played memorably by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford—as more dedicated to not just getting the story, but getting it right. And I still get nervous in lonely parking garages.

1: “Good Night, and Good Luck” (2005)—A tough choice for No. 1, but for me no film does a better of job of telling the story of journalists who act courageously and responsibly, fighting powerful corporate pressure to take on injustice. Perpetually wreathed in the tobacco smoke that killed him far too young, storied journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and his producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) challenge and eventually triumph over Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy. And extra points for Frank Langella (“Frost/Nixon”) and his nuanced portrayal of CBS chief Bill Paley.

So what do you think? What are your favorite journalism movies? What would be on your list of films journalists should either pay attention to or ignore? And again, I’d especially like to see suggestions for films made outside the U.S. Let the fray begin.

Dean Wright is Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. Any opinions are his own.

The president was inaugurated in front of adoring crowds and positive reviews in the media. As the unpopular incumbent sat on the platform with him, the new Democratic chief executive took office as the nation faced a crippling economic crisis. The incoming president was a charismatic figure who had run a brilliant campaign and had handled the press with aplomb. The media were ready to give him a break.

That was 1933, and in Franklin Roosevelt’s case, the media gave him a break.

For Barack Obama, the honeymoon was shorter.

Less than 36 hours after Obama took the oath of office, the White House denied news photographers access to the new president’s do-over swearing in, instead releasing official White House photos of the event. Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse protested and refused to distribute the official photos (which nevertheless showed up on the websites of a number of large U.S. newspapers).

This is an important issue for news organisations, the public and for an administration that has promised a new era of transparency in doing the people’s business. How are people to know, for example, that the official photos haven’t been staged?

All U.S. administrations seek to manage the flow of information and the White House and the news media have a complex, interdependent relationship. Each needs the other. But it’s important that media organisations remember who’s most important.

For Howard Goller, Reuters editor for political and general news for the U.S. and Canada, it’s clear who’s most important.

“A news organisation’s first obligation is to its clients,” he says. “Our correspondents have a front-row seat at the White House, we ask questions at news conferences and briefings, and we travel with the president wherever he goes. Our photographers work just as hard for our customers. We became concerned when on taking office, the new administration prevented Reuters and other news organisations from taking our own photos. We’ve had several conversations with the new administration since those first days and we expect a more open relationship going forward.”

Most administrations get a bit of a honeymoon. Gallup polls show that every incoming, newly-elected president back to Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed majority approval ratings. Even the lowest-rated incoming presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, had job approval ratings of 51 percent and disapproval ratings of only 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Obama’s approval rating, 68 percent, was exceeded only by that of John F. Kennedy, who had a 72 percent rating. Even a plurality of Republicans—43 percent—give Obama positive marks.

The media have also generally been positive—or at least, not very negative– about new presidents during their administrations’ first 100 days, one of those round numbers we seem to like so much.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism compared the coverage of the two most recent first-term elected presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In measuring the tone of coverage by network television, newspapers and a major weekly news magazine, the study found that only 28 percent of the coverage of both presidents’ first two months was “negative.”

No president has been more successful at managing the media than Roosevelt. So carefully did the administration control the president’s image that only a few pictures were published in newspapers of the president—disabled by polio– using his wheelchair. Indeed, in a scene in the movie “Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942),” James Cagney was able with a straight face to portray Roosevelt in a song and dance number, as the “president” wittily told reporters what was on and what was off the record.

Betty Houchin Winfield, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, argues in “FDR and the News Media” that “FDR’s consummate news management skills served as a major key to his political artistry and leadership legacy” and that “a strong president such as Roosevelt can indeed influence the journalists’ newsgathering, the reporters’ reactions, and the final news stories.”

As Douglas McCollam notes in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, many believe much of the media are already in the tank for Obama.

A Pew Research Center poll during the heat of the campaign in September 2008 found that 36 percent of those questioned believed news organisations were biased in favor of Obama, while only 14 percent said the media were biased in favor of Republican John McCain. Forty percent detected no bias. A Rasmussen poll last summer was even more stark, with 49 percent saying they believed most reporters would “try to help the Democrat with their coverage.” Just 14 percent believed reporters would try to help McCain win and only 24 percent believed that “most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.”

Those are depressing numbers for a journalist to read—and the only way to respond is to aggressively cover the issues that matter to your audience.

For Reuters News, that’s a global audience and a financial audience.

Goller says that in response to the change in administrations, “We have made some big changes, especially in the way we work together to cover the big economic stories in the face of the financial crisis as well as the politics of climate change and health care….We’ve put more people on both the White House and the Congressional beats in part because the president…has promised change and both he and the Democratic-led Congress have made a priority of addressing the crisis, no small matter for our core financial clients.”

So how do we balance the need to be close to the newsmakers at the White House with the danger of being in a bubble where news can be managed?

Goller puts it well: “For Reuters, the key is to keep our eye on the issues, and that means to be aware of the impact a president’s words and actions or non-actions have on business, the economy, other countries and Americans as a people. We ask the tough questions in the briefings—and in the stories we write. If we don’t get the answers, our stories say so. This is our job.”

As in coverage of the Middle East, there are partisans who will never, ever be convinced that journalists can report objectively. As in the coverage of the recent Gaza fighting, all we can ask our audience to do is judge us on the journalism we produce—and tell us when we’re wrong.

It’s especially important now, as coverage of the new administration moves out of the warm, feel-good glow of the inauguration. As we saw Wednesday, the stimulus bill passed the House without a single Republican vote, a reminder of the deep divisions that remain and a sign that the story of the Obama administration is just beginning. It will be up to the hard-nosed, experienced journalists in Washington to push beyond the soft, easy, feel-good stories and tell the hard and complete truth.

I’ve been tweeting from the World Economic Forum, using the microblogging platform Twitter to discuss the mundane (describing crepuscular darkness of the Swiss Alps at 5 a.m.) or the interesting (live tweeting from presentations).

Is it journalism?

Is it dangerous?

Is it embarrassing that my tweets even beat the Reuters newswire?

Am I destroying Reuters standards by encouraging tweeting or blogging?

(These aren’t rhetorical questions - I’ve been challenged by many people who would answer those questions as No, Yes, Yes, and Yes! I answer them as Yes, Potentially, No and No.)

The foundation of what we do as a company and as a news service are the Reuters Trust Principles.

While it is vital to read the five as a whole, I take the fifth (”That no effort shall be spared to expand, develop and adapt the news and other services and products of Thomson Reuters so as to maintain its leading position in the international news and information business”) as an imperative for continual innovation and experimentation.

I have no idea what journalism will look like in five years except that it will be different than it is now. That’s a great thing, I believe.

I have little patience for those who cling to sentimental (and frankly inaccurate) memories of the good old halcyon days of journalism that were somehow purer and better than a world where tweets and blogs compete with news wires and newspapers.

Bring it on, I say!

Journalism is one of the great self-declared professions and crafts.  I am a journalist because I said I was one more than two decades ago and have spent the years since working on my abilities. I am not one because I am somehow anointed with a certificate or an exam result.

Journalism is ideally designed for democratisation.

Working for Reuters gives me a tremendous platform and great access. It does not give me a license.

Microblogging and macroblogging and social networks are themselves great platforms.

If great storytellers use those platforms to display their knowledge, access, expertise and abilities, I think that is a marvellous advance.

If I don’t beat the Reuters wire with a live tweet because I deliberately hold back, someone else will. If I don’t beat the Reuters wire because I’m slow or inattentive, someone else will.

The reason my live tweeting was fast is that it was unintermediated, while the journalist covering the story went the traditional route and had a discussion with an editor about how best to position and play the story.

Both methods have important roles. In this case, the editor added value.

In a democratic world where publishing platforms are available to all, editors and institutions like Reuters MUST add great value if they are to survive the competitive fight with the unintermediated storytellers.

I love that.

I love the competitive pressure that brings.

I love the way it will force us continually to redefine our role vis-a-vis unaffiliated storytellers.

I love the way it is and will continue to force us to redefine our profession and our craft.

Are there potential pitfalls and dangers? Could a mistweet hurt our reputation? Of course. And over time we will have to work hard to decide what we have reporters tweet in their own names and what we have them do in the company name; we’ll have to refine our rules about micro and macroblogging to allow the maximum of free expression while holding fast to our important values of being fair, accurate and free from bias.

But we will get there. And consumers of news will be the ultimate beneficiaries.