Has the mainstream media just turned a corner?

When the journalist who had been writing the fake Steve Jobs blog was unmasked by the New York Times, we fully expected Steve Forbes, the journalist's employer, to terminate the chap forthwith on ethical grounds, following in the journalistic tradition of such gatekeepers as Jeff Cohen, editor of The Houston Chronicle, and other pre-eminent guardians of the Fourth Estate, who take their objectivity seriously.

After all, journalists can't expect to pen pseudonymous weblogs, even if they're just "in fun," and expect to get away with it once someone figures out who is penning the pseudonymous weblog.

Hell, this is America!

We were wrong.

Instead of getting fired, the fellow who wrote "The Fake Diary of Steve Jobs" for 14 months soon will be writing the blog as part of the Forbes.com stable of blogs.

Does Steve Forbes, the one-time presidential candidate and noted flat-tax advocate, know something that Cohen, the Hearst Corporation and their mainstream comrades don't know?

Does this mark some sort of seminal moment in journalism, when presumably objective journalists not only get away with writing pseudonyous blogs that "poke fun" at real people but are celebrated for doing so?

Hell, we guess so.