Before ever taking a media ethics course or even understanding the foundation of the First Amendment, I once wrote in a column that objectivity was “for the birds.”
After reading “Objectivity precludes responsibility” written by Theodore Glasser I almost feel correct.
Glasser’s look at objectivity and where it stemmed from, was an interesting look into the development of objectivity in the newsroom. I was unaware that it started based on, of all things, “a commercial imperative [rather] than as a standard of responsible reporting.”
A quick summation of his thoughts: Objective reporting is biased against the press’ role in society (the Fourth Estate), it’s biased in favor of the status quo, it’s biased against independent thinking, and it’s biased against responsibility.
Focusing on his thoughts that objective reporting is biased against the press’ role in society can get tricky.
From what I gather, he is not saying that remaining objective to a situation is robbing the press of their ability to report but that the press has a responsibility to protect the people – and the foundation of objectivity in today’s newsroom does not require that.
In the example Glasser cites, the scientists and the National Audubon Society, the journalist reported the “facts” incorrectly because, Glasser implies, there is no rubric for responsibility – only objectivity. Then, after the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of The Times for “neutral reportage” it further eroded responsibility from the fabric of journalism.
Reporters are no longer responsible for what they say, just how they say it. And that was 1972.
Fast forward 40 years. The only thing that has changed is reporters willingness to understand a topic they are covering.
And their willingness hasn’t risen.
Glasser points to a book by Stephen Hess called, The Washington Reporters, where, according to Glasser, Hess found that, “stories coming out of Washington were little more than a ‘mosaic of facts and quotations from sources’ who were participants in an event or who had knowledge of the event.”
Hess said that nearly three-quarters of the stories he studied, reporters used interviews and not official documents for information.
Meaning for journalists remaining objective, it has sucked the journalism out of journalists. One interview is supplying one side of a story, another interview is supplying the other side. As Glasser put it, “sources provide the arguments, the rebuttals, the explanations, the criticism.”
Journalists are a medium of communication between sides of a story, not a watchdog.
As David Brooks, a New York Times columnist, said in a 2005 speech:
“In Washington, there’s loyalty to the truth and loyalty to your team. And in government, loyalty to your team is sometimes more important than loyalty to the truth. If you’re a U.S. Senator, you can’t tell the truth all the time. If you work for an administration, you can’t tell the truth all the time, because government is a team sport. The only way you can get something done is collectively — as a group. It takes a majority to pass a piece of legislation. It takes an administration working together to promulgate a policy. And that’s fine. Politicians betray the truth all the time in favor of loyalty to a higher good for them.”
If journalists are no longer looking at documents and are simply listening to what people tell them, they may have a tough time uncovering the truth. They may have a tough time being the Fourth Estate – simply listening to what the other three are telling them.
That further perpetuates the status quo, too. Since journalists often rely on interviews and not on disseminating information from documents, they could be slower to challenge a source if the information given seems questionable.
In a world dominated by what sources tell journalists and not by what they uncover, the sources dictate what is “news” and what is not. And those sources are often people in authoritative roles – journalists rarely ask a layperson for the latest update for a bill on Capitol Hill.
Glasser pointed out that Tom Wicker, another New York Times columnist, identified the bias shown by the scientists-Audubon case when he said that “objective journalism almost always favors Establishment positions and exists not least to avoid offense to them.”
And that is why objectivity should come second to responsibility. A responsibility to the public to disseminate information and inform the public of the news for the day and why it is news, not always to simply report on what is happening in the world.
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