Because a progressive voice is rarely heard on this blog I felt it important to provide that perspective to an otherwise far right blog domination, particularly on the issue of gun controls. I did not mind the hostility toward my anonymous ID but then the blog editor allowed my name to be revealed in several online comments earlier this week.

I feel that the editor’s willingness to allow my name to be known to those who have posted such hostile comments was a huge breach in confidentiality and ethics. When I asked that my name be removed the editor flatly refused. Their reasoning was that my name is evident on another newspaper’s blog so they have no obligation to keep my name private on their blog.

When I further explained that the other paper where I write a blog column was in a different county and that we pre edit every comment to ensure that insults and threats were not part of the equation, they still refused to remove my name from their more hostile blog.

I now feel that I am in danger and I am actually considering moving out of the area because of this exposure.

Am I correct that the willing and ongoing exposure of my real name was unethical and that the newspaper that did so has picked up a considerable amount of liability do their willing breach of confidentiality?

It is an absolute truth that repressed beliefs guide the pen invisibly.

Repression is the act of hiding from oneself. The opposite – confronting oneself — is necessary.

Instead, let them out and give them a stern talk, if necessary.

We are coming out of the glory days of journalism where big powerful newspapers could engage in a division of labor. No one writing editorials was writing news stories. We kept it that way.

Some mistakenly believe that ethics require it. No, ethics doesn’t require it, abundance afforded it — BIG difference.

We are now returning to what was an earlier model, albeit in an electronic age.

And – here’s the big point I want to make about it — it increasingly shows that it comes down to integrity and character. Mr. Cahn’s paper could be a disaster, if he was a disaster — see?

He can’t rely on formulas to get by. He has to be good. He has to be decent. He has to try hard to be fair and he has to reflect every week on what he is doing.

There are no shortcuts. Who you are matters.

There is also a place for activist journalists who make no bones about the fact they are advocating a certain course. Many great activist journalists have developed a lot of trust among readers for their fairness and accuracy.

That beats trying to be something that isn’t real and isn’t even possible.

Holding your breath only works for a minute, as you say. It might get you by now and then.

The real honest work comes in cultivating detachment. We need to understand that this takes work. To cultivate detachment takes developing an ability to do accurate, adequate self-reflection. I think it was Descartes who talked about practicing “mental hygiene” with a pre-psychology meaning to the phrase. We have to be aware.

It is not a light switch and it is not a method of story telling in a tool bag. It is not something you acquire and once you get it your work is done. It is a lifelong activity, discipline, practice.

It is you. It involves who you are. It is about developing your judgment and integrity and ability to reflect on oneself.

Some will struggle harder than others to be accurate about one’s one behavior and thoughts and biases, others are helped by a natural facility or from a lifetime of engaging in the practice of scrutinizing oneself.

Those who can’t come to terms with this fall prey to fake objectivity and there is a lot of that around.

They also fall back on the only external structures there are — the formula for writing a hard news story for example. That is not enough — we all know that. There is no formula for it.

For some reason we seem to have more of a problem with this than they do in Europe and I am not sure why that is but I have noticed it. It can stunt your growth.

We really engage in a lot of fake debates about objectivity as well, using concepts that are false to begin with and weighing them against each other, discussing them at length and so on. We can’t get anywhere with that because we are discussing the merits of stuff that isn’t even real. The language we have been using should probably be put to bed for good. It would be nice. The language is really misleading.

“Detachment” is probably a better word to use for starting a discussion. The concept easily leads to more productive conversations than discussions about what “objectivity” means, because those are ultimately about what we should not be doing, and are not doing, and can not be.

But detached – that is something we can cultivate and strive for. Detachment in a world where we are inexorably attached to each other, to nature, to the world. That’s a good thing to cultivate as a journalist. Tell true stories. Don’t look for a formula. You have a responsibility to invest real effort. Stories don’t write themselves.

This isn’t the detachment of an extraterrestrial. Indeed, the presumption that only an alien from another planet can tell true stories about us sums up what I think is the presumption of those bewitched by notions of “objectivity.”