The other day on (PBS's) The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, there was an interesting discussion on what qualifies as journalism (ist) and what is opinion posing as journalmism (Rush Limbaugh, etc).

Defined jouralism is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism
or
http://www.journalism.org/

What I found interesting was that the person (s) defining jounalism as an aquiring of the facts on an issue and presenting them in as unbiased a format as possible (note nearly everyone has some biase, it is a matter of whether they ignore some facts to present a totally biased case, or whether they present all the facts and allow the people to interpret the material for themselves). Where as, there are those posing as journalists that use conjecture as facts to present a completely biased theory as though it were fact.

Examples: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/
Investigative journalism

Pick any blog for their opinion on what constitutes journalism.

The thing is, presenting the facts on a news worthy item and then saying "my opinion on this is", is still a part of being a journalist- it's what we call "editorials". Taking only the facts or creating "fictitious facts" (lies) to make a point is not. imo

There are those among the neighborhood of this .org more qualified than I, but for me opinion must be a seperate thing from a comperhensive presentation of the facts. Presenting opinion as journalism, is not journalism.

Views, perceptions, even opinions - welcomed.