Transparency is the new objectivity
At the edges of knowledge — in the analysis and contextualization that journalists nowadays tell us is their real value — we want, need, can have, and expect transparency. Transparency puts within the report itself a way for us to see what assumptions and values may have shaped it, and lets us see the arguments that the report resolved one way and not another. Transparency — the embedded ability to see through the published draft — often gives us more reason to believe a report than the claim of objectivity did.
A great post here (h/t @arrington) about how the claim of objectivity is subsumed by transparency in a linked world. The disruption of the Web is pushing "experts" from claiming objectivity in a vacuum to demanding transparency to allow the individual to determine how objective this expert truly is.
Because true objectivity is impossible it no longer serves as a value-add to our quest for information. Transparency is the new objectivity. By being transparent you let you biases through and let the audience or researcher or individual determine how you are influenced in your position. Transparency trumps objectivity because transparency allows a review of one's biases and opinions that provide context for an argument.
There's lots more to say on this; but suffice to say that being transparent rather than claiming objectivity is an important change to how press, marketers, sales people, pundits, analysts, etc. talk about themselves and the world around us.
