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The ethics of objectivity

Academic Papers, Writing, , , , ,

In their article, William Rowley and William Grimes argue that objectivity can be redefined to become a valid objective for journalists, while Theodore Glasser argues that objectivity-even an amended notion of it-is just a way for journalists to cover their butts and not serve the public.

Rowley and Grimes acknowledge the historical roots and problems with objectivity as a goal, but feel they can figure out a new, better interpretation of the term that journalists should strive for.  They describe three sub-principles that add up to a whole ideal.  The first, factual objectivity, is a matter of getting all the facts straight and putting them in a logical and understandable order.  Next is dramatic or aesthetic objectivity, which is a matter of story telling and attempting to include the emotional flavor of an event or experience.  The third is moral or ethical objectivity, which involves both reporting the larger, moral implications of a story and attempting to identify the reporter’s biases and not let them color the reporting.  The authors describe several very different stories all of which, they believe, came close to this new idea of objectivity, including Tom Wicker’s coverage of the Attica prison riot, the AP story about integration in Little Rock, Arkansas, Ernie Pyle’s World War II coverage and the Watergate story.

Glasser, on the other hand, traces objectivity as little more than an efficient way to do news that takes away the journalist’s responsibility for his or her work.  By only including the facts and taking him or herself out of the story, a journalist doesn’t have to be responsible, he says, and brings up Edwards v. National Audubon Society where the New York Times argued it should print an accusation even if it could be false-they were reporting the accusation, not making it.  Another problem cited is the tendency to accept official sources and he status quo.  Also, Glasser says objectivity robs reporters of creativity and analysis.

I’m not sure I really understand Rowley and Grimes’ three-section definition for objectivity.  Perhaps if they just used a different term, like “truthfulness,” it would make more sense to talk about being objective in reporting emotion.  Even for a totally subjective piece, like an opinion column or book, writing about other people’s emotional states is walking in a land mine-you don’t really know how they feel, after all.  It’s easy to talk about obvious cases, like saying soldiers in World War II were tired, or that a crowd is howling and shrieking.  But what about the emotional state of a serial killer?  It’s an important issue that people no doubt want to know about, but how can you be emotionally objective in any sense when the accused may be innocent, raging inside, completely cold-blooded or clinically insane?  Any of those could be ready from an impassive face in a courtroom.

I’m not saying we should not report emotional or ethical issues.  But I still think it’s important to separate what is undeniable fact (the man is accused of murder) from what someone has said (the prosecutor thinks he did it, his mother doesn’t) from what may be pure speculation (his calm demeanor seemed to be reptilian and cold-blooded).  I recognize many of Glasser’s arguments, but I’m still not convinced we should throw those distinctions out when writing.

Is news a construction created by journalists or a reflection of reality?

Academic Papers, Writing, , , ,

In “Is News a Reflection or a Construction,” the author writes that news is most decidedly a construction created by journalists and not a reflection of reality.

This is a pretty easy argument to follow.  For one thing, there’s news selection.  The author points out that only a sliver of everyday events are covered, so journalists have already abandoned reflection via selection.  Journalists also decide the focus and how the story is told.  The author goes on to list some influences and constraints on the construction process.  Commercialism, which is the first and possibly strongest influence, is a result of market competition between news organizations.  This can cause journalists to abandon professional ideals and seek the story or angle that will grab attention or shock and avoid controversy that might alienate customers.  Other influences listed in the article include story formulas, like the inverted pyramid, which tends to make news coverage similar; resource constraints which may not allow journalists to cover everything they’d like to, organizational forces like ownership patterns which may influence a paper’s ideology or profit-motive; advertisers, who may try to buy off stories critical to them; source use, for example quoting one expert over another; the interest in covering deviance, and sometimes limited geographical focus.  The author argues that although this all has the advantage of simplifying the daunting task of selecting, writing, and editing the news, it also narrows the scope on what is news and how thoroughly things should be covered.

It’s hard not to agree with the author.  Of course reporters and editors construct the news; it wouldn’t take all day to produce a newspaper if they didn’t.  The closest thing to reflection a newspaper does is photography, and even that is construction if you accept selection as a creative act (and photographers do).  The influences the author brings up are valid too, though I think general cultural influences like race, gender and class need to be added to the list.  But what’s the point in just running down a list of influences and proving news is not a reflection?  The does not seem to say this is all good or bad, per se.  Just saying journalism isn’t a magically perfect mirror to all of life and reality in the universe at any given moment is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Commercialism and professionalism – democratic media or declining standards?

Academic Papers, Writing, , , , , , , , , ,

A response to Mass Media and Society (James Curran and Michael Gurevitch), Chapter 10

Daniel Hallin argues in “Commercialism and Professionalism in the American News Media” that the decline of journalistic professionalism due to commercialism is not necessarily bad or good but instead a complex change.  He agrees with one side of the debate that it may lead to a more democratic media, but says that the old school worry about declining standards and less public-affairs information is probably true as well.

Hallin traces the development of professionalism in the media by citing a 1940s-era Commission on the Freedom of the Press report that reflected concerns similar to those we have today.  The commission found that the political leanings of media owners and concentration of ownership required that journalists consider their work as a public service, not just a job.  On the other hand, more recent developments have pushed for more market-driven journalism.  Forces such as competition for viewership with television and public (stock market) ownership of media companies have made many newspaper executives advocate market-driven reporting.  In television, increased competition, deregulation, the rise of local news and reality-based programming and large media-corporate mergers have pushed away from professionalism as well.  Hallin says that despite all this, pro-market editors and owners have not won the argument-professionalism is still alive on the individual journalist level.  More to the point, he believes that neither side is right.  For example, though market-driven shows like Hard Copy, Larry King Live and Jerry Springer may give voice to individuals with controversial minority beliefs that would never be touched by hard news reporters, these shows are more interested in exploitation and fear-mongering than discussion of issues.  Hallin says that old-style professional reporting leads to regrettable practices like accepting the government’s official version of events and covering news more important to the elites.  On the other hand, the market-driven ideology might lead to information-rich media for elites and information-poor media for the masses-which is hardly democratic.

I agree with Hallin, although I think many of the faults he finds with the professional media may have been faults of the culture of the 1950s and 60s instead.  The tendencies to focus on Washington, accept the official line, and cover foreign affairs in terms of national security were more due to World War II and the Cold War than professionalism in general-it was in the name of professionalism, not marketing, that Watergate was exposed.  Also, many of the things that may be attributed to marketing, like the drive for diversity reporting, are as much part of a shift in professional ideals as anything else-Hallin even gives the example of professionals wanting to cover the inner city even though suburbanites are more interested in champagne prices.  He’s right that the last 20-30 years have been a mixed bag for the mass media and information consumers.  There are more shows bending the line between entertainment and journalism than ever before, but on the other hand the market has created hundreds of television channels where there were just three, including 24-hour news coverage.