With the prestige of the media at an all-time low, these desperate times call for high-quality journalists along the lines of Bob Woodward and Edgar R. Murrow to save journalism from itself.

So who is the obvious choice for the San Francisco Chronicle to cover Iran’s elections? Someone whose name is synonymous with outstanding journalism. Someone like … Jeff Spicoli.

You heard it here first — the Chron has dispatched actor Sean Penn to Iran, where he was seen Friday at a mosque in Tehran “at a prayer service as worshippers chanted ‘Death to America,’” reports Editor & Publisher.

Reuters reports that he had registered at his hotel as “Sean Justin Penn, journalist.” Penn similarly covered Iraq for the paper in 2003.

No outrage so far from the MSM, although it is a Saturday. So let me get MSM logic straight … bloggers don’t deserve journalistic protection, even if they happen to be journalists, but (liberal) actors do.

Before anybody blows the hypocrite whistle, I am well aware that I revealed Journalism’s Dirtiest Little Secret: Anybody with above-average intelligence and writing ability can be a journalist. Anyone. And yes, Penn does indeed fall into the “anyone” category.

But there are two important caveats. Read more:

The first caveat, of course, is that Hollywood celebrities tend to be incredibly stupid. Watching a week of “Celebrity Jeopardy” is all the proof I need that your average pretty face born after 1950 could be outsmarted by common household pets. But who knows? Penn may be used to the environment — a bunch of people chanting “death to America” sounds like a party at Streisand’s house, sans Islamic robes.

My prejudice aside, while “anyone” can be a journalist, it does not abrogate Penn’s or anyone else’s responsibility to be fair. Given Penn’s history of leftist activism, can anyone argue with a straight face that Penn will divorce himself of biases when he writes whatever ends up in the Chron? Heck, former New York Times editor Howell Raines couldn’t resist turning the Gray Lady into an advocacy mouthpiece when Pinch Sulzberger promoted him from the editorial page. Like any pampered celebrity journalist these days, no editor is going to change a word of what Penn writes, or ask him for balance or clarification.

Phil Bronstein, Chron editor and Penn buddy, likely will put Penn’s story on the Opinion page, where any responsibility of balance can arguably be abrogated. But I don’t suppose Bronstien has a plan to send Rush Limbaugh or any right-of-center celebrity to Tehran to provide a counterpoint to Penn’s inevitable conclusions. That doesn’t make you friends at Columbia Journalism Review and Poynter, where journalism whiners would decry a Republican special correspondent as the end of the world.

This kind of journalistic asshattery is not what the Fourth Estate needs right now. And seeing how the Chron’s writers are three weeks away from the end of their contract, the word “strike” is being whispered and security has been called to Chron offices and printing plants, doesn’t Bronstein have better things to do with his time?

I will be following the “Get Smart” cone of silence that the liberal MSM will drop on Penn’s new career. If you take anything from this, just remember that these are the same media geniuses who think that bloggers aren’t journalists, but Jeff Spicoli apparently is on a par with Walter Cronkite.

Despite myself, I’m glad that Mr. Penn has been given this opportunity, and I look forward to reading his work. It’s too bad that Mr. Hand never saw him make something of himself.