Journalists, Provocateurs, Maybe Both

Where once there was a pretty bright line between journalist and political operative, there is now a kind of a continuum, with politicians becoming media providers in their own right, and pundits, entertainers and journalists often driving political discussions.

There have been times when it seemed that Rush Limbaugh was acting as de facto head of the Republican Party, as the Democrats picked up talking points from Rachel Maddow. And Sarah Palin, through Facebook and Twitter accounts, has become an important source of political wisdom for many Americans. Bill Adair, who is the editor of PolitiFact.com, a fact-checking Web site run by The St. Petersburg Times, said that, at the beginning, his Pulitzer Prize-winning site vetted only pronouncements of government and party officials. But that soon proved to be out of step with how politics actually works. "We realized that we had created an artificial wall, and that talk show hosts, Web sites and pundits were as much a part of the discourse as politicians," he said. So now the site also truth-squads talking heads from Glenn Beck to Ms. Maddow.

Even the most tradition-bound journalists would concede that while watching the world spin, they like to nudge it every once in a while. Why, after all, would someone spend their professional life enmeshed in the civic conversation unless they had a stake in it somewhere? But what is emerging is more of a permanent crusade, where information is not only power, but a means to a specific end. As content providers increasingly hack their own route to an audience, it's becoming clear that many are less interested in covering the game than tilting the field.