I don't know much about art, but ...

Chesapeake Team Leader Bill Bartel thinks Pilot Online stumbled over the line between objective reporting and opinion-mongering when it linked a light-hearted interactive feature called "Art Censor" to a story about a controversy over a painting of a nude hanging in the Chesapeake Public Library.

Bill wrote:

I know online is a separate animal but I need to register an objection. I don’t think it’s journalistically sound to use the interactive painting online with the moving covers. I know the artist doesn’t mind. It’s very funny and clever. But, in doing so we are showing a bias and trivializing her art. We would never do that in print except maybe on the editorial page.

I just wanted to give my two cents.

I confess that I produced the "Art Censor" while biding my time waiting for DTI to come up. I didn't originally intend it as journalism ... not in the sense that it advanced the story in any way. But when our online partners chose to link it to the story, clearly labeled as "opinion," I didn't object.

"Two cents" from Bill is worth a dollar and a half from some folks, so I'll take his comments as a learning experience. Yes, the new media are different from the traditional media in many ways, but some of the old values of the profession are as sound as ever they were.