Jeff Birnbaum has an item in his Washington Post column this morning that deserves some serious discussion:

Tony Blankley is leaving as the editorial page editor of the Washington Times to become an executive vice president of Edelman, the public relations firm.

But don't expect the former Newt Gingrich spokesman -- and former Ronald Reagan speechwriter -- to disappear from public view as he counsels the firm's clients worldwide. In this age of blurred journalistic lines, Blankley, 59, said he will continue to write his syndicated column and will also continue to appear on the political yell-fest "The McLaughlin Group."

Oh and one more. The London-born Blankley, who was a childhood actor in Hollywood (including on "Lassie" and "Sky King"), will serve as a visiting fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

For very personal reasons, I have been worried about what Birnbaum calls "blurred journalistic lines."  I write a column about the federal budget for nationaljournal.com, am a source for journalists on budget issues and am frequently quoted by them as an expert, work in public relations mostly for financial services clients and so pitch reporters and producers stories in this area, make lots of speeches on economic and financial issues to a wide variety of audiences, and now have a blog.  In other words, I don't just cross journalistic lines, I crisscross them constantly.

This could have never happened not too long ago.  But cable television news, websites, blogs and other types of new media have increased the opportunities to publish and be published.  They also so increased the demand for content that the strict lines that were seldom blurred in the past now don't really exist.

I go out of my way to make it clear what role I'm playing.  For example, I won't write a

column about any client issue even if it's a client I don't work on, and I always tell a reporter at the start when I'm calling them on behalf of a client.

I don't know Tony Blankley but assume he will be doing much the same thing I do.  But the multiple roles and blurred lines that now exist require that those of us crossing them make special efforts to make it clear what we're doing and when we're doing it.  It also requires that journalists ask more questions about who, if anybody, we're representing when they or we call.

And it really means that the opinion of anyone who is cited as an expert shouldn't automatically be taken as gospel.