What does a good journalist look like?

Jeff Jacoby's latest opinion column, "Why should a journalist's race matter?" in the Boston Globe is sure to get journalists and journalism educators and professionals riled up. (Which is, granted, always his primary agenda: to get people in general riled up.) I have never agreed with anything he says, and I don’t wholeheartedly agree with his argument here. His comment on the efforts of magazines such as Jet and Ebony is interesting, but his reasoning is a bit too simplistic and misses the point of the whole industry, education, and opportunity.

He makes a good point, though, that good journalism is good journalism regardless of skin color. But I do think that the field should be more diverse…and by that I don’t just mean more black journalists, but varying backgrounds and viewpoints. (Because being black or being anything--a woman, a liberal, even an evangelical--isn’t a point of view.)