Not quite a year ago, Eric Fehrnstrom wrote a remarkable mea culpa for Boston magazine. Entitled “The Other Side of the Hill,” the essay traced Fehrnstrom’s journey from political reporter to political actor. His move from State House bureau chief for the Boston Herald to spokesman (and assistant state treasurer) for Joe Malone was not all that unusual. But the way he described it, the transition “from bomb thrower to bomb catcher” took more of an attitude adjustment than I, for one, ever imagined.

As a reporter, Fehrnstrom’s assessment of elected officials was simple, if simplistic: “In my book, they were all pretty much rogues, and we never cut them any slack. Every misstep and misstatement found its way into the paper.” Fehrnstrom recounted, however guiltily, his own successes in “gotcha” journalism, starting with his 1989 stakeout of Evelyn Murphy, then lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate, on vacation in Florida while Rome–or at least Beacon Hill–burned in fiscal inferno. It was the kind of tabloid triumph that earned Fehrnstrom the highest of newsroom compliments: “Nice hit.”

Once on the inside of state government, needless to say, Fehrnstrom saw things differently. “I learned, for instance, that the people who work in government are, in fact, people,” he wrote of his epiphany. “Their intentions are generally good, and they wrestle long and hard with serious issues and questions that most people ignore. And I learned that governments–the institutions and the people who run them–rarely get credit for the things they do right.”

That last comment has the ring of a press agent finding out how difficult it is to get his guy good ink. But the rest of Fehrnstrom’s revelation is remarkable for how obvious it is, at least to anyone who doesn’t limit his view of government to stupidity and corruption (to be exposed) and who sees politicians as something other than targets (to be hit). His confession, however heartfelt, seems less about the adversarial nature of the reporter-politico relationship than about a lack of imagination. And not just Fehrnstrom’s: I have no doubt that his lock-and-load attitude is widespread in the profession. But it leaves me wondering: What level of cynicism, if not contempt, does it take for someone to cover state government so closely for so long–and so well, I should add–and never develop any degree of empathy for the people who labor at it and struggle with its challenges?

I was telling the story of Fehrnstrom’s confession to a colleague recently, and he had quite a different reaction. He noted the thievery that was apparently taking place at the Treasury as Fehrnstrom was learning to love state government, and said, “We could have used a little more gotcha.”

Therein lies the challenge for us at CommonWealth magazine, and for me, in particular, as I take the helm for this, my first issue. The magazine is beginning its fifth year of reporting on politics and civic life in Massachusetts with a skeptical but sympathetic eye. We try not to be gullible, but we do extend to political actors of all stripes–Republicans and Democrats, elected officials, party activists, interest-group advocates–a presumption of good faith, even if that presumption is, as the lawyers say, rebuttable. That’s not because we think the combatants on the public battlefield are pure of heart, but because what’s at stake in government action–or inaction–on issues of vital importance is bigger than who’s goring whose ox.

Don’t get me wrong: CommonWealth likes a good scandal as much as anybody. Pettiness and intrigue make for good reading, and exposing these vices to light can be cathartic. But if we find Beacon Hill’s frequent revivals of School for Scandal more disheartening than thrilling, it’s because we see the unseemly side of political life threatening to devalue the very effort of addressing the issues of the day through the political process. Scandal often inspires reform, but it always reinforces cynicism.

For this, we can hardly blame reporters’ appetite for dirt. After all, nothing perpetuates “gotcha” journalism like an endless stream of scalawags who deserve to be gotten. But there is a danger in treating corruption and incompetence as chronic conditions of government. Boston Globe business columnist Steve Bailey reacted to the unfolding Treasury scandal by saying it was only a matter of time before some evidence of past wrongdoing turned up “because more than anything we have a lot of new fixers”–Treasurer Shannon O’Brien and Attorney General Tom Reilly, by name–“standing around in need of something to fix.” Bailey came close to arguing that this is exactly what we have elections for. “In a real sense, this is how the system should work. A place like the treasurer’s office is a backwater where big dollars are at stake and influence can be exercised, but is rarely seen. It is a place that should turn over often, not just from candidate to candidate but from Democrat to Republican.”

True enough, but it hardly explains why government agencies must be Augean stables, still filthy no matter how many times they’re cleaned out. The real scandal at the Treasury was not that somebody would try to loot the public cash drawer, but that they should find it easy to do so. Why should a government office whose sole function is to handle money be so lacking in rudimentary financial controls? Failure to answer that question is what made Joe Malone’s expressions of personal pain ring so hollow. Calling the alleged embezzlement by his former deputies “the ultimate betrayal,” Malone seemed to suggest that personal loyalty–rather than well-established procedures, effective supervision, and regular audits–should be the guarantor of lawful conduct.

Even worse, in some ways, was the Charlestown Navy Yard cut-rate condo scandal–a story broken by the crown princes of gotcha, the Globe “Spotlight” team. What was shocking in the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s approval of the below-market-rate resale of a condo to the agency’s own $90,000-a-year chief of staff was how many BRA officials signed off without even noticing that the deal made a mockery of the agency’s goal in building the housing in the first place. Just a decade after redeveloping the navy yard in part to create housing units that would remain affordable in perpetuity, the BRA apparently no longer cared about whether those homes remained in the hands of low-to-moderate-income families. Instead, the BRA allowed a flourishing black market in discount housing–developed at public expense–available to those in the know, rather than those in need. And all this took place in a Boston City Hall that has been obsessed with the cause of affordable housing through two administrations over the better part of 20 years.

Now, that’s good cause for gotcha, and good reason for a sense of self-righteousness to swell in the breasts of reporters who see public officials as prey to be hunted. But such investigative triumphs complicate the question that, in all its ambiguity, guides CommonWealth: How can political journalism be a vehicle for invigorating, rather than denigrating, civic life? Certainly no good would come from sweeping such foolishness and venality under the rug. It would only allow these political malignancies to spread. But every time a political figure lives up to our worst expectations, the cause of democratic government dies just a little.

We at CommonWealth will not renounce the use of gotcha; that would amount to unilateral disarmament. But mostly we will continue to make trouble in another way, by raising real questions about the purposes and practices of government. We do so not out of contempt for those elected or appointed to do the public’s business, but out of respect for the task they’re charged with. To us, holding public officials accountable means not just scrutinizing expense accounts but probing the ideas, plans, and actions of officials and institutions. It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.