Glenn Greenwald on Objectivity in Journalism: He's Wrong A debate has been raging for 50 years or more over whether journalists should try to be “objective” in reporting events or describing controversies. It flared up recently in an exchange in The New York Times between former editor Bill Keller and uber-journalist Glenn Greenwald. And even thousands of miles away, I haven’t been able to avoid it. At a conference on the media this week sponsored by the United States Studies Centre of Sydney University, I was asked several times whether I thought journalists should strive to be “objective.” The fashionable answer today is that there is no such thing as objectivity. There is an old philosophical fallacy at work here that goes back to the works of the 18th century Irish philosopher George Berkeley. When I used to do “man-in-the-street” interviews to judge who was ahead in a race, I often had to recognize afterwards that I had asked questions and picked out people to interview who would confirm my hopes that the Democrat was going to win.
Objectivity in Journalism DAVID BROOKS There is some dispute about whether objectivity can really exist. How do we know the truth? Well, I’m not a relativist on the subject. I think there is truth out there and that objectivity is like virtue; it's the thing you always fall short of, but the thing you always strive toward. What are the stages of getting to objectivity? The second stage is modesty. The same thing has to happen for journalists. The third stage of objectivity is the ability to process data — to take all the facts that you've accumulated and honestly process them into a pattern. The fourth stage of objectivity is the ability to betray friends. The fifth stage of objectivity is the ability to ignore stereotypes. And the last bit, the sixth stage is a willingness to be a little dull. I'm someone who fails every day at being objective. David Brooks. The above is an excerpt from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on November 16, 2005. Copyright © 2006 Imprimis
The Iraq War on Cable TV - 12/19/06 - Media Research Center Special Report The Iraq War on Cable TVCNN and MSNBC vs. The Fox News Channel By Megan McCormack, Scott Whitlock and Rich Noyes The Media Research Center Executive Summary | Generally, journalists hate it when anyone, especially a non-journalist, accuses the media elite of tilting towards liberals and against conservatives. CBS’s Mike Wallace has called claims of liberal bias "damned foolishness," while his former colleague Dan Rather has sounded downright conspiratorial on the subject: "Those people are trying to create such a perception because they’re trying to force you to report the news the way they want you to report it....I am not going to be cowed by anybody’s special political agenda — inside, outside, upside, downside." But many journalists have become quite comfortable alleging bias at one news outlet, the 10-year old Fox News Channel. So how does the Fox News Channel compare to its cable news competitors? CNN & MSNBC’s Bad News Agenda FNC Devoted More Time to Covering U.S.
Journalistic objectivity Journalistic objectivity is a significant principle of journalistic professionalism. Journalistic objectivity can refer to fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship, but most often encompasses all of these qualities. Definitions[edit] Sociologist Michael Schudson argues that "the belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' a distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation. Criticisms[edit] Advocacy journalists and civic journalists criticize the understanding of objectivity as neutrality or nonpartisanship, arguing that it does a disservice to the public because it fails to attempt to find truth. Another example of an objection to objectivity, according to communication scholar David Mindich, was the coverage that the major papers (most notably the New York Times) gave to the lynching of thousands of African Americans during the 1890s. Brent Cunningham,[6] the managing editor of Columbia Journalism Review, argues that objectivity excuses lazy reporting.
Glenn Greenwald vs. the NYT’s Bill Keller on objectivity and the future of journalism Is objectivity in journalism a false idol, one that leads media outlets like the New York Times into error rather than truth? Or is it the only protection against a future of partisan media yelling at each other and preaching to the converted? Those were the stakes that emerged in a conversation on Saturday between Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald and New York Times columnist and former executive editor Bill Keller. The debate took place in the pages of the Times, in the spot normally occupied by Keller’s column, under the heading “Is Glenn Greenwald the Future of News?” Many new-media theorists and observers (including me) argue that transparency is the new objectivity, as David Weinberger of Harvard’s Berkman Center put it in an excellent essay some time ago — in other words, that disclosure about one’s viewpoint trumps the traditional attempt to pretend that a journalist or media outlet has no viewpoint. Keller: Objective journalism is more credible
Rethinking Journalism Ethics, Objectivity in the Age of Social Media | Mediashift In response to the rapidly changing media environment, many schools and academic programs are offering novel approaches to journalism education. This seismic change creates tensions within programs, especially when it comes to how to teach ethics for this increasingly mixed media. In an earlier column, I put forward some principles for teaching ethics amid this media revolution. But these principles do not address some specific problems. Whither objectivity? Today, students don’t just learn how to report straight news on deadline. Schools of journalism have always taught, to some extent, what is called “opinion journalism,” such as learning to write an editorial that supports a candidate for political office. One problem is whether the ideal of journalistic objectivity should be emphasized in these changing curricula. The new journalism tends to be more personal. So the question is: Should educators maintain or abandon objectivity in their teaching? Photo by Roger H. Redefining Objectivity
A definition of journalistic objectivity as a performance Historically, journalism as a profession emerged alongside the notion of objectivity. However, in the past decades, objectivity has been dismissed not only as an unattainable standard but also as an undesirable norm. Yet an analysis of the criticisms reveals that most scholars actually fail to define journalistic objectivity. This article tries to remedy this flaw and to suggest that journalistic objectivity is an evolving notion which can no longer be considered a synonym for neutrality or detachment. Objectivity is a standard that promotes truth, defined as a ‘correspondence, grounded in correctness, between thought and reality’ (Heidegger, 1943:1). Unlike alternative standards which are centered on personal moral values, objectivity conceives of journalism as a performance, with this term referring to three interrelated dimensions: the essential notion of practice, the existence of concrete and universal criteria of evaluation, and the openness to criticisms. © The Author(s) 2011
An Argument Why Journalists Should Not Abandon Objectivity In “Losing the News: The Future of the News that Feeds Democracy,” published by Oxford University Press, Alex S. Jones, a 1982 Nieman Fellow and director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, describes in its prologue his purpose and intent in writing about the “genuine crisis” in news. “It is not one of press bias, though that is how most people seem to view it,” he contends. “Rather, it is a crisis of diminishing quantity and quality, of morale and sense of mission, of values and leadership.” In this excerpt from the chapter “Objectivity’s Last Stand,” Jones reminds readers how objectivity assumed its role in the tradition of American journalism, what “authentic journalistic objectivity” looks like when practiced well, and why it matters so much to the future of news reporting. I define journalistic objectivity as a genuine effort to be an honest broker when it comes to news. But what, exactly, was objective journalism?