Last week, Jim Barnett raised a question about nonprofit journalism: What makes it legit? How do we know if a nonprofit news outlet shares the ideals and culture of traditional journalism, and how can we make sure we don’t get fooled by advocacy groups disguised as objective journalists?

It’s a difficult question — the Internet makes publishing wide open to everyone — and at the end of his post, Barnett lays out a list of what he thinks we should use as a starting point when deciding what is and isn’t a legit nonprofit news outlet. He lists various IRS and accounting standards, a number of vague measures of professionalism, and what I’d consider an unfair standard, whether an organization is credentialed by federal or state government.

This is one place where Barnett and I disagree. Before coming to the Lab, I used to edit a nonprofit news site, The Washington Independent, where for two years I dealt with the reality of who gets considered “legit.” If you’re not, you lose out on the privileges given to traditional media outlets. Take Congressional press passes: The Washington Independent was denied admittance to both the daily and periodicals galleries because the site was not chiefly supported by subscriptions or advertising. (Our support came from donors and foundation grants.)