I always thought one of the responsibilities of exercising judgment included an attempt to see the other side, or sides; to recognise your prejudices; weigh them, perhaps; and mitigate them. Self awareness was – and remains, I believe – the best remedy to journalistic (and blogging) hubris.

Len Downie, Exec Editor of the Washington Post, practised a more extreme method:

I didn’t just stop voting, I stopped having even private opinions about politicians or issues so that I would have a completely open mind in supervising our coverage.

I was reminded of the early Christian ascetic, Origen, of whom Wikipedia records:

Teaching throughout the day, he devoted the greater part of the night to the study of the Bible and lived a life of rigid asceticism. According to some traditions, he carried this to such an extent that, fearing that his position as a teacher of women as well as men might give ground for scandal to the heathen, he followed Matthew 19:12 literally and castrated himself…