Journalistic Ethics Run Amok ...

I'm currently engaged in a pretty spirited debate over at FlynnFiles.com, regarding journalistic ethics.

Here's the background:

There have been several recent examples of writers being accused of being "shills," including Armstrong Williams, Doug Bandow, and Peter Ferrara (in the interest of "full disclosure," I should "disclose" that Peter and I recently sat on a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation.)

My argument is that it's hard to define who is a journalist, these days ... that the "new media" has blurred the lines between what used to be considered appropriate behavior for writers. But I'm open to debate on that.

Personally, I can tell you there are several juicy topics that I don't discuss on this blog, for fear someone would say there's a confict of interest. And I'm clearly not a journalist ...