Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks criticized Andrew Breitbart's “disgusting treatment of Shirley Sherrod.” Rodricks went on to write in his July 27 column:

Daily newspapers make mistakes. They usually deal with the basic facts of stories -- the title someone once held, the name of a suspect in a criminal matter -- and corrections appear in print every day. Newspapers have had some reporters and columnists who made stuff up (years ago, a Washington Post reporter won a Pulitzer for a fabricated story) or copied the work of others. Those people were all fired.

Had any producer at a local TV station, network or cable newsroom cobbled together a video like the one Mr. Breitbart posted of Ms. Sherrod, that producer would be among the nation's unemployed today.

That Mr. Breitbart associated his hatchet job on Shirley Sherrod with “the imperfect nature of journalism” suggests that he sees himself as a journalist. He's not. The journalist has to prize above all else the truth, and presenting the truth in the public's interest. Twisting the truth, editing video to make black look like white and up look like down -- that's the stuff of hocus-pocus and snake oil; it's not the work of the journalist.

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The so-called mainstream news operations are not perfect, but they still generate most of what informs American society today, and they provide content for all the others -- Limbaugh and Fox, MSNBC and Jon Stewart. Only with public support of a news culture grounded in the fundamentals of journalism -- solid reporting, fair and informed analysis, respect for the truth and the public good -- does this democracy survive. Settling for less means settling for Andrew Breitbart.