First, objectivity is not merely the lack of obvious bias. It also entails the commitments to a) seek out all relevant facts on a topic; b) examine the veracity of the sources and the fitness of the methods used to ascertain these facts; c) consider these facts as the ultimate arbiter of whether an interpretation is valid or not and d) be willing to modify interpretations in the light of new evidence. Objectivity is an ideal and a set of guidelines for practice. I suppose that gives it a kind of authority, but an appeal *to* authority is not objective at all.

Without delving too far into what transparency is, clearly it isn’t an alternative to objectivity. In many respects it is inferior. It is not hard to imagine a news program that reproduces in great detail an investigation, but which is framed around an ideology that conceals the relevance of other facts. In other respects it is a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for objectivity; for example, as a basis for reproducing an experiment or reconstructing another author’s interpretation of a text. The refuge of a charlatan in our time is more often to hide behind his “transparency” than behind his “objectivity.” In every case such a fellow relies — and maybe this is related to your point? — on people’s confusing transparency with objectivity (and by extension, getting a distorted view of the relationship between particulars and generalities).

All objective statements are transparent, in the sense that whether or not they come with footnotes attached, they could be verified and confirmed or disconfirmed with a little investigation. Transparent statements can be objective, or not; the concept of transparency alone doesn’t give us the tools to know this. Your allusion to transparency as a “trust mechanism” would tell us as much. Objectivity is a quality of trustworthiness; transparency a means to that end.

What would transparency for Glenn Greenwald (or any blogger) look like? He gets paid by salon.com, OK. People make their assumptions about that fact. These assumptions fall into 2 broad categories, it is either a liberal rag or a voice of reason in the wilderness. These assumptions are based on whether one agrees or not with the conclusions reached in salon’s articles. Is it a step further if Mr. Greenwald has a link on his site where he attempts to explain his motivation (the Constitution is the best thing ever!), his biases, his formative experiences?

Is it possible or desirable to attempt to quantify those things that cause us to trust someone, but not someone else? Will “reputation broker” be on the next list of “10 Growing Career Fields?” I think to some extent that’s what editors will become; reputation brokers.

Reputation brokers can do the due diligence on bloggers. I know that no matter what the source, after a while any blog or magazine falls into predictable patterns. So for people looking for fresh perspectives, reputation brokers might help with steering towards other, yet equally trusted sources of news, policy and opinion.

I’ve heard several people say they believed what Bush said, because he was the President. Who could have better credentials? And yet without transparency what do we know of the truth? A few months ago a friend said she’d couldn’t condemn torture by our government because “those people know what they’re doing and if they have to use torture it’s because it’s necessary”. We can’t move fast enough away from believing in status to believing in research. It’s transformational to have, suddenly, a network of people holding authorities, journalists, reporters, newscasters, and bloggers accountable.

Another hugely strong reason for transparency as a trust mechanism is that data that means one thing to one person means something completely different to another. As a case in point, read Glenn Greenwald’s article in Salon about the conversation between CEOs at GE (owners of NBC) and Fox to reduce the animosity between NBC’s Keith Olberman and Bill O’Reilly — http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/01/ge/index.html

What the New York Times and countless other news outlets reported as a “truce” or “making peace” (isn’t this what everyone wants right now?), “growing up” and “civility”, Greenwald labels an egregious example of corporate-controlled journalism. He notes that Immelt was essentially blackmailed with personal attacks and exposure of corporate acts GE would rather keep under wraps, until GE capitulated.

Perspective means so much, and the same facts can look different when treated differently. That’s one reason it’s so important for the facts to be exposed – so people with a different perspective can point something out that might have otherwise been totally missed by the “experts”.