Razib Khan, journalist?

I get a fair number of emails at this point. First, I apologize to those of you who are sending me emails for whom it is not part of your job who I haven’t responded to. Stuff gets lost in the din. Second, I’m rather busy right now, so that’s why I haven’t been posting much, and won’t be doing so for a few days. But I wanted to throw out a weird question: am I a journalist? What does that mean? Journalism, unlike law and medicine, is a field without licensing. But unless you count certification as a necessary precondition (I don’t) computer programming doesn’t have licensing either. Nevertheless, we understand that someone who only does HTML/CSS isn’t a programmer. Someone who works with Python is a programmer (please no jokes!). And so forth. I’ve never given thought to a similar issue in regards to journalism. I ask because sometimes I get email referring to my status as a journalist, often in an upbraiding tone in relation to my objectivity. The main issue I would enter into the record is this: I don’t presume any great objectivity beyond what a typical person off the street would bring to …