For years, it’s been black letter law in journalistic ethics: Never use your position, insight or knowledge gained from sources to aid or advise public figures — particularly politicians — in return for something of value.

It was a bright line to be crossed at significant personal and professional peril.

Sadly, over the years the line has been breached and blurred by some in the media who engaged in self-rationalization to justify their actions, embracing a delusion their transgressions were of no consequence and would escape discovery.

The line — honored by thousands of men and women devoted to the highest calling of their chosen craft — is no longer blurry.

It’s been erased altogether, expunged by self-aggrandizing journalists taken in and blinded to their ethical obligations by their exposure to power centers and by their advice and counsel being sought by those who occupy those centers.

CNN news anchor Chris Cuomo paid with his $6 million a year job for advising his New York Gov. brother Andrew how to deal with the media over allegations of sexual harassment which eventually led to the governor driven from office in disgrace.

The news network executives protected him until revelations that he used his position to gain knowledge from other reporters and sources to pass along to his brother—information which was enormously valuable as the governor’s damage control efforts intensified.

The backlash over the disclosure of the depth and breadth of his involvement and the continuing embarrassment it threatened proved more than CNN was willing to tolerate, even from the anchor of the network’s top-rated show. It was time to cut their losses; Cuomo was off the air within days.

The recent disclosures of text messages sent by the hosts of two ratings leading shows on Fox News Channel to the chief of staff to President Trump urging a presidential speech to the nation at the height of the Jan. 6 assault on the U. S. Capitol has again raised ethical questions over their personal involvement in presidential decision-making.

Both Sean Hannity, host of the show that bears his name, and his colleague Laura Ingraham sent what appeared to be frantic messages to chief of staff Mark Meadows, imploring a presidential address calling on the protestors to leave the Capitol and end the public spectacle of the seat of American democracy under violent siege from its own people.

Their messages warned Trump the riot was inflicting major damage on him and, left unchecked, would destroy his legacy.

Both justified their private messages as nothing different from what they had already said repeatedly on the air. Why, then, did each feel it crucial to use private back channels to offer advice to the nation’s highest elected official, if not for their self-serving desire to play a significant role in a history-making — albeit disgraceful — event?

Granted, neither Hannity nor Ingraham went as far over the line of propriety as Cuomo, but their efforts to insert themselves into the center of the nationally riveting events swirling around them smacked of personal aggrandizement and self-promotion.

That both were long time supporters of Trump and used their platforms to advance his agenda and justify his words and deeds while belittling his opponents does not excuse privately serving in an advisory capacity to him.

Cuomo, Hannity, Ingraham, along with their colleagues at competing networks, would refer to themselves as journalists but they are not reporters in the traditional sense.

Rather, they are editorialists and polemicists who are paid handsomely — not to mention book deals and lecture fees — to deliver ideologically-driven and frequently inflammatory dissertations to vast audiences receptive to their messages and who tune in faithfully as a form of validation for their rigidly held views.

There is no suggestion of objectivity in their harangues; no recognition of contrary and equally valid points of view; no understanding that opinions different from theirs deserve attention.

In other words, none of the components traditionally present in news are found, nothing to add to the public storehouse of knowledge of complex issues.

It is opinion only, one individual’s interpretation, whether ideologically right or left, of national and international events.

The communications revolution upended the media landscape, overwhelming the print press and driving much of the traditional news outlets into financial oblivion while hastening the arrival and dominance of opinion-based programing.

It created an environment in which points of view could masquerade as news but free of the obligations and responsibilities which historically governed the industry.

The line that had always separated the news media from involvement in the political universe was disparaged as a quaint notion no longer relevant or observed. It inevitably produced the kind of entanglements that brought down Chris Cuomo and legitimized the actions of Hannity, Ingraham and others who see nothing untoward in adopting roles as advisors and strategists for political figures.

Public confidence in the news media is at an all time low and critics scornfully refer to journalistic ethics as an oxymoron.

It is time for many in the media to engage in self-reflection and cease contributing to the scorn.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University.