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Transparency is the buzziest of buzzwords in journalism today, and most of its manifestations I support. The time is long overdue for journalists to level with readers and viewers about the myriad imperfections and limitations of what we do. So post the full text of an interview on the Web, explain how a major error or ethical lapse slipped through. But there is a point at which the pursuit of transparency veers into the absurd, and instead of clarifying the question of what journalists do and why, can only obfuscate.

Consider the proposal — advocated by, among others, blogging enthusiasts and those who would divide journalism along politically partisan lines — that articles in newspapers and magazines should disclose any relevant information about the biases of the writer. A reporter covering a proposed smoking ban, for example, should tell readers whether she smokes. The assumption being that if she smokes, we can infer that her sympathies lie with opponents of the ban, and vice versa.

Well, here are two sets of facts about a journalist:

1. Grew up in West Virginia; spent youth hunting, fishing, and playing high school football; went to college at a state school an hour from home; best friend from high school is a coal miner.

2. Lives in Manhattan; works at an Ivy League university; has two master’s degrees; prefers to vacation outside the U.S.

These two sets of facts produce two distinctly different sets of assumptions about the person in question. In both instances, the person in question is me.

Most people I know can hold conflicting ideas in their head simultaneously. More important, they are capable, and willing, to modify the relative weight accorded these competing ideas as they learn more about each — more about, say, the actual nature of the risk of second-hand smoke. To ignore this ability to reason is to turn knowledge into some sort of Pavlovian reaction.

Jeff Jarvis, a blogger and media critic, is a vocal proponent of this transparency strategy. Unlike the political opportunists who advocate for transparency in order to bolster the disingenuous notion that “all journalists are partisan anyway, so let’s just be honest about it,” Jarvis seems sincere about using transparency to bridge the gulf of credibility between journalists and the public. In April, he and I and the NPR ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, discussed this strategy on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, including the difficulty of deciding which aspects of a reporter’s personal experience are relevant to a given story. Blind spots born of social class, for instance, may have more influence on what we cover and how we cover it than, say, the color of our skin. So do we also list what our parents did (or did not do) for a living? Whether we attended private or public school? Graduated from college or not? Have a trust fund? Moonlight as a bartender to pay the rent? Were ever on public assistance?

This raises what for me is the most disturbing aspect of the confessional approach to transparency: By way of example, Jarvis suggested on the program that readers should know when an African American writer is assigned to cover an African American issue. The potential relevance is obvious, but people — both writers and readers — are not so simple. To assume that we can know what someone thinks by identifying their personal traits, habits, and predilections is a dangerous notion, and really has nothing to do with clarity. Indeed, what good is transparency when it becomes a form of blindness?

To read the articles in the July/August 2006 issue, click here.

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