An ancient debate has resurfaced in recent weeks on whether journalists should be accredited by government. The debate has revived concerns in the craft that the negative consequences could outweigh any privileges of professional registration.

The Quebec government's recent review of media led to a proposal of a new regulatory system that would include a registration system of its journalists. Not surprisingly, the Canadian Association of Journalists has called this an excessive interference in press freedoms.

And in England, the shadow culture secretary for the Labour Party suggested not only a registration system but an ability to "strike off" the bad players, much in the way doctors are for malpractice. Not surprisingly, the idea has its critics, including the Guardian's venerable media writer Roy Greenslade.

Online public comments came in for quite the criticism at the annual National Conference of Editorial Writers, the North American body for editorial-page leaders.

The journalists said that oversight of those comments shouldn't have been surrendered, that the comments-for-traffic trade has been a mistake, and that the standards of news organizations have been hurt by the arrival of comments.

While a panel discussion indicated that there is too much value in these comments to eliminate them, there was agreement that vigilant oversight is needed.

A new report from the Pew Center for People and the Press suggests significant problems in public trust of the press in the United States. On nine of 12 negative indices studied since 1985, the survey of trust showed all-time marks.

That being said, the press remains more trusted as a source of information than are such other institutions as government and business.

The report found people trust their local sources of information more than they do national sources, and it suggested that the national perceptions were skewed by negative views about all-news cable television.

"Fully 66% say news stories often are inaccurate, 77% think that news organizations tend to favor one side, and 80% say news organizations are often influenced by powerful people and organizations," Pew said in summarizing the study. "As recently as four years ago, 39% said news organizations mostly get the facts straight and 53% said stories are often inaccurate."

Then again, when asked about their own news sources, Americans were far more kind. Some 62 per cent said their sources were accurate and only 30 per cent said the stories were often inaccurate.

Among the other findings in the poll of 1,501 Americans in July: television remains the prime information source; nearly one-quarter now get news from social media; people want their press to be non-political; most believe news organizations have professional intentions; equal numbers say the press helps and hurts democracy; and most support its watchdog role.

Hardly surprising but worth chronicling: A new United Kingdom study has found a decline in public trust of the broadsheet and tabloid press.

With the extent of the phone-hacking scandal much more evident, the poll suggested that only five per cent of Britons trust the tabloid journalists, while 41 per cent trust the broadsheet journalists. That level is down from seven per cent and 54 per cent, respectively, last November.

The YouGov survey for the University of Nottingham found that trust in British members of Parliament rose in the same period to 24 per cent from 17 per cent.

The Columbia Journalism Review has written this week about a possible conflict for the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times. Ethan Bronner is part of a speakers' bureau for Lone Star Communications, a public relations firm that also pitches him stories.

CJR suggests in the piece that Bronner has written about some of the firm's clients as part of his work. It argues that there is an appearance of a conflict in this case. His employer argues his work and speeches comply with its ethics guidelines, but CJR raises questions about this.

"Running the Jerusalem bureau for The New York Times is a tough job in a hypersensitive area, one that attracts more than its share of slings and arrows. So maybe it is best not to hand out extra arrows, as Ethan Bronner seems to have done," the CJR's Max Blumenthal writes.

This week, prominent columnist Johann Hari of The Independent confessed an extensive record of plagiarism and a healthy dose of harassing his rivals through nasty Wikipedia entries.

He said he would return a writing prize and take a four-month leave to train himself in journalism fundamentals. The news organization said it looked forward to his return.

Hari said he had massaged quotes, often simply taking from some other source or someone's writing, when his interviews didn't yield material of a particular grade.

The Economist, in its Bagehot blog, has summarized the experience and added some context of the ethical dilemma for the foreign correspondent. It notes the challenge of character for the journalist whose work might not be easily verified.

The blog finds great fault with Hari and greater fault in those defending him. It also frets about what

News organizations approach the subject of suicide in different ways. Some exercise great restraint, some don't. Some provide context, some don't. Some avoid the topic.

In his latest post on ethics, journalism scholar Stephen J. Ward (head of the Center for Journalism Ethics at University of Wisconsin-Madison) counsels the fullest possible reporting in cases involving public figures.

He acknowledges there are substandard ways to approach the matter, but suggests there is much to be learned in circumstances of tragedy. Journalists discharge their public obligations by reporting the matter. There were opportunities for a wider understanding of depression and other social issues in the recent deaths of hockey players, he notes.

As painful and uncomfortable as it is, he writes, journalists should lean toward full reporting. They should be cautious about accepting guidelines, even though they should be sensitive to minimize harm.

"Deaths in any society should be a matter of public record. No exceptions," he notes. "The release of this information should not be in the hands of family."

Rather than treat the matter sensationally, Ward counsels: "The guiding principle should be: publish uncomfortable facts where such information is necessary for a clear public understanding of the event and to indicate what social responses might be necessary."

The Ontario Superior Court has set a new framework for defamation with political bloggers. In a new ruling it says that the context of blogger debates might make it possible to exchange libels without penalty.

The court said the context of the platform, with lots of freewheeling comments in the mix, might mitigate what would otherwise be considered a libel. If someone were expecting a rejoinder, for instance, the first remarks might not be problematic. The case recognized the different dynamic of an Internet debate.

It is more than likely the case will be appealed, but the ruling sets a different tone for the standards of political blogging on message boards in Ontario, Canada's largest jurisdiction and often a precedent-setting place for communications and media. This case is bound to be watched as it moves up in the justice system.

Belatedly I'm posting the link to an interesting thread revived last week by the NYU journalism scholar Jay Rosen on what he criticizes as the uncritical "he said, she said" characteristic of some reporting.

Rosen identified a National Public Radio story in which two conflicting views were granted about the same weight. In his view, one of those parties was lacking in credibility, but the journalist seemed to take the view that the audience could decide so.

As he sees it (and has written earlier), this passivity is a problem in journalism. Standards should be high enough to not just give airspace to anyone, and Rosen views it as washing your hands of determining what's true.

In the end, he concludes, it's at the very least lame.

In recent days a debate has surfaced on the ethics of TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and his new fund for start-up companies. The specific issue: How can Arrington continue to write for TechCrunch (now owned by AOL) when he has venture capital (some of it AOL's) in the mix.

As it turns out, he has gone to the sidelines.

But the handling of his case and its implications have stirred a healthy discussion in the craft about conflicts of interest, preferential treatment, and whether there are new boundaries emerging of acceptable practice. In the midst of this, the head of AOL has suggested TechCrunch might have had different standards than its journalistic outlets.

The latest to weigh in is the media columnist for the New York Times, David Carr, whose writing today is withering on most everyone involved. Carr mainly registers disbelief the situation got this far, but he identifies the central problems for journalism as it deals with new challenges in reporting on technology.