The debate over Josh Wolf reveals a very disturbing trend.

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs28294;_ylt=AuEaEPRjsp5_T7UjlmMlcSis0NUE

Kevin Sites: Well, that's what I want to ask you. If I asked you to take sides, if I asked you to take a side of journalism or activism, you know, which side are you taking here? Because you're asking for the protection of journalism yet you're also seeking to be an activist.

Josh Wolf: Would you not say that Thomas Paine was an activist for the Declaration of - or the independence of America and also...

Kevin Sites: But I would say that he would not be claiming to be journalist, he would be claiming to be an activist. That's all I'm asking you to do, is take sides. Are you claiming to be an activist or a journalist?

Josh Wolf: I don't. I see that advocacy has a firm role within the realm of journalism.

Kevin Sites: Right, but as an advocate, you have to be willing to allow yourself to be jailed and expect the consequences of your actions. As a journalist, you're asking for certain protections, you know, from those consequences. That's why I'm asking you, you know, which side do you want to step on at this point.

Josh Wolf: My role is to uncover the truth to deliver to the public. That is my number one accountability.

Kevin Sites: But that truth is through, as you said, a prism of your own political convictions.

Josh Wolf: The truth is biased by everyone's convictions, whether it's a corporate conviction of your employer, your own personal convictions that are left politically based from mainstream press perspective, or a more biased perspective [because of] which you won't be as open about as a journalist who does not put forward an impression that they are trying to be objective. If you watch the videotape, you'll see there are many things that make the protestors look bad and there are things that make the cops look bad. It is essentially a balanced report of what I saw. It's a bird's eye view.

Debra Saunders, a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, applauds Wolf's dedication, but doesn't believe he should be called a journalist.

"I think that you can be a blogger and be a journalist," Saunders tells me from her office at the Chronicle. "There are people who fit that [description], but when you're an activist cavorting with the people you're chronicling, then you are not a journalist."

Her own newspaper disagrees with that assessment and has supported Wolf on the Chronicle's opinion pages.

"The fact that Josh Wolf has strong political views does not disqualify him from being a journalist any more than the fact that I am an editorial page editor and have opinions disqualifies me from being a journalist," says John Diaz of the Chronicle. "The fact is, he was out at that rally, collecting information to disseminate to the public. I think that makes him a journalist."

Ultimately, Saunders says, it won't be journalists and bloggers who decide the issue, but the government.

"The courts are going to end up deciding who journalists are, because, unfortunately, this administration is really pushing the envelope in jailing journalists, and it won't end with the Bush administration," Saunders says. "It will get bigger as people point fingers in many ways, and that means the courts are going to decide who journalists are. You may not like it, but that's the way it is."