Yahoo Chief Operating Officer Dan Rosensweig on traditional media: “We don’t know who your editors are. All our lives we read stuff written by people we don’t know that’s edited by people we don’t know, who might have an agenda.” [News.com article by Charles Cooper]

Why do we readers need to know anything about the people that write and edit the news? Can’t we just take it as a matter of faith (there’s that religion theme again) that they are professional journalists and we can trust what they say and write?

I am not a journalist, and whatever it is I am doing here, it is not journalism. But if you’ve been reading smays.com for a while, you know that. In fact, you know a hell of a lot about me. If I’ve held anything back, it’s been unconscious. Does that make anything I write any more believable? I can’t answer for you but from my perspective the answer is clearly yes. I’ve been reading Dave Winer’s Scripting News for four or five years and the guy has some strong opinions. Anyone who reads that blog knows exactly what they are. It makes it easier for me to evaluate what he writes and reports.

But some would insist I trust and believe what Jason Blair was reporting in the New York Times just because it was the NYT. Oops.