The difference between reporters and (some) bloggers

Last night the City Council voted to have an open discussion, rather than the planned closed session, about a possible lease or sale of the Long Beach Airport. That decision came about in part from pressure by community advocates, gadflies and local news blogger Bill Pearl. See my article about the decision in today's newspaper.

It's rare to see a reporter or any journalist standing at the council meeting podium, and even rarer to hear one give his opinion. We saw this happen last year, and it was the first time in my 10-year journalistic career that I had seen such a thing, when my fellow Press-Telegram employees and our executive editor addressed the drastic changes that had been happening at the newspaper (that wasn't a fun article to have to write, I can tell you that).

But that's the difference between what I do and what Bill Pearl does for www.lbreport.com. My job is to report the news, the facts and only the facts, not to give my opinion. I leave that up to the P-T editorial board.

Bill Pearl, on the other hand, is practically a one-man show at the Web site that he runs out of his home. He's reporter, editor, occasional photographer, and yes, editorial writer. He sometimes posts editorials on his Web site, which he had done about the airport closed session, and gives his opinions freely at council meetings, though that is rare for him as well.

Here's as close as I can get to opinion -- kudos to Bill and the other community advocates for pressuring the council to open up the airport discussion to the public, and to the council for unanimously voting to do so. There's been a lot of talk about creating transparency down at City Hall, and as a journalist, I'm all for it. That's the way democracy should work.