Brent Cunningham of the Columbia Journalism Review poses this rhetorical question at the end of a post on transparency in journalism. What he is referring to is the push by many bloggers for journalists and their publishers to provide information regarding the author’s political background, affiliations, and biases toward the story. “A reporter covering a proposed smoking ban, for example, should tell readers whether she smokes,” Cunningham writes, “The assumption being that if she smokes, we can infer that her sympathies lie with opponents of the ban, and vice versa.” Cunningham, before posing his final question, concludes by stating, “To assume that we can know what someone thinks by identifying their personal traits, habits, and predilections is a dangerous notion, and really has nothing to do with clarity.” So, can transparency in the political sphere become “a form of blindness”?