Susan Goldberg, editor of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, says yes, only if the non-journalists are being paid. She says “we can’t have people on our payroll who won’t play by our rules.” Their rule is that topics that create a position of conflict cannot be covered.

Tom Regan, a news blogger for National Public Radio, says it is important to establish written guidelines with any contributor. He believes that in regards to Wide Open, "I think the issue here is transparency," he said. "I think to some degree it’s naive for any news organization to think they can invite people from outside the news organization to have this kind of a political blog and expect that these people would not have contributed to a political campaign." Regan feels that if these bloggers do have a particular opinion or are supporting a campaign that should be expressed in the blog so that readers have a proper understanding and background.

Many media organizations have not been able to make the transition to online easily. Different organizations are trying different ways to make things work.

The Chicago Tribune’s political blog The Swamp has an opinion section, but this comes strictly from the readers and not the writers of the blog, the Tribune’s 16 Washington bureau correspondents.

The Star-Ledger does things differently with their opinion site, N.J. Voices. The blog has more than 50 non-paid contributors, who each have a bio on the blog, and are able to post without first going through the editor. When their content is submitted it is posted under the section “Latest Opinions.” This way, the contributors can express their political views without posing a problem for the organization.

John Hassell, The Star-Ledger deputy managing editor for online says this transparency keeps the blogs alive because it allows bloggers to do what journalists cannot: be biased.

Source: Poynter Online