(Dan, did your spam filter eat my first attempt to post this?)

1) Be open! Naked conversations! Show your flaws! Let the readers know there’s a real person writing!

2) YOU ARROGANT EGOIST, THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE JOURNALISTS!!!! (as opposed to the humble bloggers, especially the A-list ones …).

That is:

A-lister’s warts show their charming authenticity.

A-lister’s denounce other’s warts as showing why they’re considered “lower than dirt”.

Seems to me there’s a logical problem there (of course, the real resolution is faking sincerity).

But wait– it’s a BLOG. We’ve been asking reporters to BLOG so they can finally be frank and talk about what’s on their mind that would otherwise be whitewashed by editors.

Few people would have even come across this story post if Matt Drudge hadn’t slapped a non-too-subtle link to it: “CBS REPORTER SHOCK CLAIM: OBAMA AIRPLANE SMELLS BAD; CAMPAIGN TREATS PRESS POORLY…”

1,368 comments were left. His previous blog post 6 days earlier drew 2 comments.

The lesson here to Dean Reynolds: don’t write anything too honest that will be taken out of context and splashed across a silly Matt Drudge headlinef. In other words, don’t blog.

And, in the last week, he hasn’t.

But when someone threatens poor coverage because the plane is dirty and there’s too little time to file stories, that’s petty and unprofessional.

This is rather trite.
A few years back, the media-transparency community made common allies with the blogging-evangelist group on this: journalists no longer had any excuse to hide their biases. The weblog seemed like the obvious place for the reporter to explain any biases.

Now, it would be far-fetched if every journalist explained who they voted for. And unnecessary, since the Hugh Hewitt school is convinced that the press is unapologetically liberal. At best, journalists should report these little things which *might* effect their reporting. That’s what Reynolds did here.

Now, this was a measly blog post; Reynolds did not even venture as to whether this quid pro quo was actually taking place vis-a-vis Obama. His press coverage has been generally favorable — just ask Steve Schmidt of the McCain campaign.

On the other hand, McCain dissed Letterman, and Palin has limited herself to 2 new interviews. Using your logic above, would you fault the press for raking her over the coals? Obviously we expect the press to be fair, but if the candidate isn’t being helpful, should we be surprised?

And overall, is this *really* driving hatred of the media? Conservatives hate the press as they since Reed Irvine started banging the gong 4 decades ago. Liberal activists dislike the press for insufficiently addressing particular causes, and not impeaching Bush/Cheney right now. There may be a class issue that Tom Brokaw (or Bill O’Reilly) can get a table at Le Cirque and we can’t, but otherwise, is this really a big deal?

Occasionally in America, people stand up and say, “Because of X I can’t do my job as effectively as I’d like.” That rarely wins fans, but being honest hardly ever does.

on the other hand, 80%+ of the *comments* to that post reflect why so many print journalists hate and fear the blog community.