This week, “journalists who typically adhere to a professional objectivity stepped into their sometimes neglected role as advocates for the voiceless and began excoriating the Bush administration for what many agreed was a poorly executed reaction to the disaster,” the Baltimore Sun’s Nick Madigan writes.

WNT EP Jon Banner said reporters should “ask a lot of tough questions and raise issues for our audience, and if that makes us advocates, so be it…This is the true nature of our job, to call attention to the enormity of the disaster and to find out if enough is being done.”

> More: “We’re human beings first and journalists second. With some stories, it becomes clear that we are one large community. We’re seeing this in lots of different places in recent history — Oklahoma City, 9/11. These are stories that affect all of us. And this is clearly an emotional story.”