The Village Voice's Sydney Schanberg makes an argument for greater transparency in the practice of journalism.

An excerpt:

Journalism's most serious failure, probably, is its reluctance to explain how reporters go about putting together a news story. A large percentage of news stories, for example, begin with a public relations announcement from a government agency, private advocacy group, politician, corporation, celebrity, or other publicity seeker. Sometimes the finished products that appear in a paper are little more than slightly tweaked rewrites of the original press releases. That is known as bad journalism. But we don't talk about it. Even superior newspapers don't write about such things, out of fear that their critics, or the general public, will use this candor against them.

This lack of openness about our tradecraft—this non-transparency—is really the mother of most of the press's troubles. Consider the Plame-gate saga. It cried out for major news stories explaining in detail how reporters in Washington and elsewhere deal with confidential sources and why they give them confidentiality and what the pitfalls are.

It's my guess that if this candor were displayed on a regular basis, reporters would automatically reduce the frequency of the confidentiality grant. We know that in some stories, such as national security matters, confidentiality is crucial if the reporter is to protect a genuine whistle-blower and get the information to the public. But we also know that often it is granted when government officials simply want to spread self-serving accusations or dirt.

For example, in the ongoing Plamegate investigation, Tim Russert, the prominent host of NBC's Meet the Press, says, in effect, that no national security or classified information was discussed in his July 2003 phone conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, who is now indicted. Then why did Russert grant him confidentiality? And why doesn't Russert clear up the matter now by making public a transcript of the deposition he gave to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald? Russert is under no legal obligation to keep his testimony secret, and it will come out anyway if the case goes to trial.

Robert Novak, the columnist who set off the scandal by identifying a CIA operative by name in an article shortly after the Russert-Libby conversation, has also refused to explain his reporting process. Novak is assumed to be cooperating with the prosecutor to avoid a contempt proceeding, but he has left the public in the dark. He says he will discuss his role when the case is concluded.

Here's the conflict in such situations. The press calls for transparency by government, corporations, and everyone else. But here the reporters reject transparency for themselves, and yet they say they are practicing good journalism. The public needs a fuller explanation, and that can only come from the reporters themselves.

And reporters can describe their methods in detail without identifying their confidential sources. Just tell the public, whose "right to know" we are forever invoking, how we go about our work. Again, candor would probably lead the news community to tighten up its methods and become more professional. We wield a lot of power, so there's something out of whack if we go around demanding accountability from others and don't impose the same level of accountability on ourselves. Our mantra could be this: What do we know and how do we know it?

Some other tips:

• Admit mistakes quickly.
• Admit what you don't know.
• Reporters should "drop out of the race for personal celebrityhood."
• A reporter's first loyalty should be to her or his readers; if a source breaks faith with you by lying under the cover of a promise of confidentiality, both the lie and the liar should be exposed.