The End of Objectivity (Version 0.91)

UPDATED

(This is a draft. Over time I hope, with your help, to revise this into a better document. Let me know what you think.)

Maybe it's time to say a fond farewell to an old canon of journalism: objectivity. But it will never be time to kiss off the values and principles that undergird the idea.

Objectivity is a construct of recent times. One reason for its rise in the journalism sphere has been the consolidation of newspapers and television into monopolies and oligopolies in the past half-century. If one voice overwhelms all the others, there is a public interest in playing stories as straight as possible -- not favoring one side over the other (or others, to be more precise, as there are rarely just two sides to any issue).

There were good business reasons to be "objective," too, not least that a newspaper didn't want to make large parts of its community angry. And, no doubt, libel law has played a role, too. If a publication could say it "got both sides," perhaps a libel plaintiff would have more trouble winning.

Again, the idea of objectivity is a worthy one. But we are human. We have biases and backgrounds and a variety of conflicts that we bring to our jobs every day.

I'd like to toss out objectivity as a goal, however, and replace it with four other notions that may add up to the same thing. They are pillars of good journalism: thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency.

The lines separating them are not always clear. They are open to wide interpretation, and are therefore loaded with nuance in themselves. But I think they are a useful way to approach quality journalism. They are, moreover, easier to achieve in an online setting.

Thoroughness

When I was a reporter and, later, a columnist, my first goal was to learn as much as I could. After all, gathering facts and opinions is the foundation of reporting. I liked it best when I felt I had left 95 percent of what I'd learned out of the final piece. The best reporters I know always want to make one more call, check with one more source. (The last question I ask at all interviews is, "Who else should I talk with about this?"

Today, thoroughness means more than asking questions of the people in our Rolodexes (circular or virtual). It means, whenever possible, asking our readers for their input, as I did when I wrote my book (and other authors are doing on theirs). Competitive pressures tend to make this a rare request, but I'm convinced that more journalists will adopt it.

Accuracy

Get your facts straight.

Say what you don't know, not just what you do. (If the reader/listener/viewer does know what you don't, you've just invited him/her to fill you in.)

Fairness

This one is as difficult, in practice, as accuracy is simple. Fairness is often in the eye of the beholder. But even here I think a few principles may universally apply.

Fairness means, among other things, listening to different viewpoints, and incorporating them into the journalism. It does not mean parroting lies or distortions to achieve that lazy equivalence that leads some journalists to get opposing quotes when the facts overwhelmingly support one side.

Fairness is also about letting people respond when they believe you are wrong. Again, this is much easier online than in a print publication, much less a broadcast.

Ultimately, fairness emerges from a state of mind. We should be aware of what drives us, and always willing to listen to those who disagree. The first rule of having a conversation is to listen -- and I know I learn more from people who think I'm wrong than from those who agree with me.

Transparency

Disclosure is gaining currency as an addition to journalism. It's easier said than done, of course.

No one can plausibly argue with the idea that journalists need to disclose certain things, such as financial conflicts of interest. But to what extent? Should journalists of all kinds be expected to make their lives open books? How open?

Personal biases, even unconscious ones, affect the journalism as well. I'm an American, brought up in with certain beliefs that many folks in other lands (and some in this one) flatly reject. I need to be aware of the things I take for granted, and to periodically challenge some of them, as I do my work.

Another way to be transparent is in the way we present a story. We should link to source material as much as possible, bolstering what we tell people with close-to-the-ground facts and data. (Maybe this is part of accuracy or thoroughness, but it seems to fit here, too.)

To the extent that we make thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency the pillars of journalism, we can get a long way toward the worthy goal of helping our audiences/collaborators. I don't claim it's easy, but I do think it's worth the effort.

Comments

[Anna]

"thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency"

You might want to include Andrew Cline's (Rhetorica) distinction between objectivity as process and objectivity as stance.
The first is worth developing, the second is outmoded.

A stray thought - if what journalists are doing is research on reality (i.e. they are acting as scientists, as Phil Meyer observed) - what does it mean that "fairness" is a tenet of journalism, but not of science?

[Anna]

"the second is outmoded"

perhaps outmoded.

[rusty]

Right on on ditching "objectivity." While I'm sure it has, for many journalists, always stood for the four things you would replace it with, for too many others and for the public's view of the industry as a whole, it has become just a weasel-word to excuse a panoply of laziness, incompetence, and false equivalency. Whatever it once meant, it now stands for "Thou Shalt Not Question Us, For We Are Objective."

About fairness: I agree with your concept, but I don't like that word to describe it. We already have "fairness," and too much of the time it means "make sure you have a quote from the right and a quote from the left" (for whatever "right" and "left" are for a particular story). Fairness is used as an ass-covering tool, not a journalistic tool.

I would replace that one with "truth." Ok, it's more loaded. But in being loaded, it also gets to the heart of the difficulty with that pillar. Fairness is easy to claim, where truth is not. Truth means that if one side of your story is lying to you, you say so. Fairness would lead most to just print the lies and hope readers can see through them.

Of all the things you list, this one is by far the most important. So much so that I'd leave out the other three entirely and just replace them with truth. After all, accuracy is an inherent function of truth; you can't write a true story with false facts. Throughness is an inherent function of truth; there is no such thing as a half-truth. And lack of transparency can also be called "concealment." If you're hiding something, you're not telling the truth.

What we desperately need in journalism is more truth. Journalists need to be 100% committed to the idea that their job is to tell the truth, the best they can, all the time. What we have right now is "objectivity," "fairness," "balance" and a host of other weasel-words that crowd together and mill around in an effort to disguise the fact that truth is not among them.

And before someone tries it: I don't think that anyone can posess The Truth or communicate it. I'm not talking about acheiving total knowlege and enlightenment here. I'm talking about the bedrock values of human journalists doing their best under difficult conditions to tell complicated stories to a lazy and easily-distracted public. There will be a lot more misses than hits. But if you want to lay out an overall principle for the job of journalism, it damn well ought to be "tell the truth."

[The One True b!X]

I'd like to add one other contextual suggestion, that's especially relevant in weblogs-as-journalism because of their form, but carries lessons for any journalism outlet, I would think: Journalism as process, not product.

Meaning, to me anyway, that it's important to note that any single article/post on a given story may not in and of itself manage to fully encompess "thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency" -- but a fuller arc of articles/posts following that story over time will come clsoer to fully encompassing these things.

It's a mindset shift away from "news article as The Story" to "news article as This Part Of The Story".

[Freedom Fries]

I would add: freedom from nationalistic bias, which is related to fairness and accuracy.

As the post-9/11 atmosphere has shown, almost all main media factored in a patriotic bent, and were unable to produce elementary criticism about the US administration. This phenomenon has national pride/patriotism at its root, and during crisis time, it seems to engulf all. Journalism should be aware of that and resist it.

Other media in other country suffer from the same bias.

Cheers

[/pd]

::"Competitive pressures tend to make this a rare request" -
From whom ?? As I reader I am not asking the journalist to produce crappy reports. We want all the details- so where is the competitive pressure coming from ?? other journalist- the MSM ?? Thats the root issue.
::I'm an American, brought up in with certain beliefs that many folks in other lands (and some in this one) flatly reject. I need to be aware of the things I take for granted, and to periodically challenge some of them, as I do my work.

What does an American have to do with being a Journalist ?? YOu are already compartmentalizing the issue. IMHo, I wish that the discourse, is large about grassroot level stuff-for the global audience. Is this a wrong request ? or have I misunderstand and the intentions and the articulation of this essay ?

.. and another thought provacative ,good read is here via Dave Winer.

[Owen]

Dan, objectivity has always jostled with passion and personal viewpoint of the news, and with good reason in many cases...how can one be "objective" about Auschwitz?

On the other hand, your model presents the reporter as primarily a data researcher, not a true observer of events. It omits any reference to analysis, to understanding what the data means, or implies, or how it all fits into the world. That's why many of the best reporters are effective teachers who can inform and educate. They tend to be people who've been around, and can combine intelligence with experience and facts to get that perspective.

Rusty's idea that "truth" is better that "fact" is seductive, but "truth" isn't an absolute when you get into human affairs...it's a clumsy amalgam of opinion, observation, feelings and expression. Even facts are only factual from certain perspectives.

The bottom line is that we need wisdom (to collect, think about and come to conclusions); courage (to place the story above political or commercial pressures) and communications skills (to paint for the audience a clear picture of events, with context appropriate to the setting).

Give me reporters with those skills as well...the heritage of people like Murrow, Cronkite, Pyle, and their generation of reporters. Most of the new breed lack the true sophistication needed, or like Rather and Brokaw, forgot their roots.

[Terry Heaton]

Good stuff, Dan. I've long called objectivity "journalism's artifical hegemony." We have Walter Lippmann and his crowd to thank for it. Chris Lasch once wrote that all it did was create a sterile environment in which to sell advertising. Bye-bye.

[Matthew Sheffield]

Since we don't have trackback, here's a repost of what I posted over at RatherBiased.com:

Over at his blog, ex-San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor proposes that journalists end the farce of objectivity and replace it with goals that are actually possible to attain: thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency. Had CBS paid attention to this Dan, Memogate never would have happened.

Gillmor's list is important and useful, but we'd add one more goal: diversity of thought. Many times people's experiences preclude them from being skeptical of things that others of a different background instinctively regard with suspicion. Any news organization trying to achieve practical objectivity (which is what we may term Gillmor's goals) needs a staff that is not intellectually uniform. Intellectual diversity isn't as important in most spheres of human action, but it is vital for those trying to ascertain the truth about current affairs.

[Just a Reader]

In reaction to:

"Should journalists of all kinds be expected to make their lives open books? How open?

Personal biases, even unconscious ones, affect the journalism as well."

This weblog looks like a commercial for your book. I'd try to mention it a little less often; consciously or unconsciously.

[Ken Wada]

We have replaced "objectiveness" with the notion of "even-handedness". Being objective brings with it the idea of properly vetting the information with tangibles...numbers, facts, data etc. Being even-handed means mentioning alternate viewpoints no matter how incorrect, slanted or skewed in nature

[rusty]

Owen: I wasn't trying to say that truth is better than fact. Facts are the bedrock. And I also tried to address the criticism that truth in a social context is necessarily provisional and partial, at best. It's not, as I said, that there even is a The Truth (capitalized to imply ultimate immutability) -- it's that a person doing their best to tell the truth will have a very good yardstick against which to measure their story. If your story is the truth of a matter as best you can understand it, then you will have sought out all the information you could about it, you will have presented all the information necessary for the reader to understand it, you will have addressed all the sides you can find of an issue, and also done your best to measure them against each other and sift reality from spin, or admit when you cannot.

You and I are saying the same thing. I think a reporter with wisdom, courage, and communication skills will ultimately try to tell the truth, to the extent they can understand it, and will probably be pretty good at it. I think that's what made the greats great, and the lack of that drive to tell the truth above all else is what is missing in much of the journalism of today.

*Knowing* the truth isn't the key thing. None of us ever will, except about the most trivial things. It's making your goal be to determine and communicate the truth as best you can that's important.

[Robin]

I'm with Owen: add honesty to that list (or is it implicit in wisdom?) and I'm sold.

Honesty, courage, and wisdom. Wow. If I was starting a newspaper (online, of course) I'd put that on the masthead. It would seem a little puffed-up at first, but oh well. What a lodestone.

[Janne]

Pd, what I believe he was trying to convey is that we all are harboring various prejudices, unconcious assumptions and other baggage simply from being real people, with a particular hirstory, rather than some ideal, disembodied observers.

I am Swedish, atheist, and involved in the sciences; this will naturally give me a very different point of view on various events than Dan, for example. And it's not just about being objective; basic questions like what news is _news_ , and thus worth reporting, will get different answers based on your background.

As for "fairness", I think it suffers from the same kind of fuzziness as "objectivity". It fails the "not" test; very few people would argue for having news that is not fai, whatever it is. Perhaps "fidelity" (as opposed to distorted) would capture it better? Don't misrepresent peoples views, statements or facts, even when you could argue that it is technically accurate.

[Bob McKeand]

TRUTH

[Al]

Hmmm, excuse me, "The End of Objectivity"? It was over years ago. I guess the lefty's are just figuring this out!

[Jon Garfunkel]

"Objectivity is a construct of recent times. One reason for its rise in the journalism sphere has been the consolidation of newspapers and television into monopolies and oligopolies in the past half-century."

This is wrong. The urge for objectivity can be traced back to Lippman and Pulitzer at the beginning of the century-- "recent times" relatively-- but this was before consolidation. This was much before the consolidation of the last twenty years, when each city had several papers. New York's papers at the time the Times was sold, in 1896: The World (600,000), the Journal (430,000), the Sun (130,000), the Herald (140,000), the Evening Post (19,000), the Tribune (16,000), and the Times (9,000!). The raising of standards, of objectivity and everything else, was a reaction to competition. It always is.

See Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (1978). I'll bring it to the conference.

Jon

[Ian Betteridge]

Perhaps I'm missing something, or perhaps it's because I come from a somewhat different school of journalism, but your four notions look to me like a text book definition of what objectivity in journalism is - or perhaps, what it should be when not exercised by lazy journalists!

[Bill Mitchell]

Dan, I’ll second your motion to demote objectivity from our hierarchy, but I but offer in nomination a principle not currently among the ones you propose: independence.

As a consumer of journalism, I recognize that the people producing it bring their own histories, biases and points of view to their work. But I want them to pursue the news with as much independence as possible – independence from their employer, from their government, even from their own point of view.

No question that journalists need to be a lot more transparent about what that struggle for independence involves. But the ongoing push for independence is worth the effort – and I think conveys an important addition to thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, and transparency.

[Nick Arnett]

I recommend "Just the Facts: How 'Objectivity' Came to Define American Journalism," by David T. Z. Mindich. Mindich is also the host of a journalism history mailing list: http://personalweb.smcvt.edu/dmindich/jhisabou.htm.

The first amendment was inspired in good part by Milton's Areopagitica, which argued that in a fair playing field, truth emerges. To me, objectivity replaces that idea with the illusion that individual reporters (I was one for many years, I'll note for those who don't know me) can approximate such a system in each and every article or report. Although this avoids the problem of point-of-view overload, it also serves the interests of the big media oligopoly nicely, since it presents the illusion of completeness.

I think we live in the time in which we are inventing means of thinking about and analyzing information that will restore (at least for a while) a broad marketplace of ideas. But this also feels to many people like a time in which there are just too many opinions and viewpoints, which can be discouraging or even frightening. I suspect that Europe experienced similar feelings 500 years ago when the printing press suddenly made new viewpoints available. The big example is that printing allowed Luther's challenge to the Pope's authority to raise quite a buzz, faster and wider than anything before it.

Nick

[Lex]

First, thanks to Anna for mentioning Andrew Cline's "objectivity as process" essay; I think it's essential to this discussion.

Owen's point gets at a subset of accuracy. There's factual accuracy, and then there's contextual accuracy. To use a real-life number, if you say the administration's 2005 budget includes $50M for port security to prevent terrorism, you might think, in the absence of additional information, that that's a lot of money. But if you also report that that figure is down from $200M in 2004, the combination of those two facts raises a whole 'nother set of questions ... which the report must strive to answer so as to be contextually accurate.

I also agree with Matthew Sheffield's point regarding the need for diversity of thought in newsrooms; however, I think it's less important than some of the other tenets raised here in that sufficient attention to the correct process of journalism will reduce (but not eliminate) the importance of the mindset of the individual practitioner of journalism.

[Daniel Conover]

This argument is breaking out all over these days, but let me say, again: Yes, objectivity is difficult to attain in a meaningful way, but this just makes it more valuable. We should be turning the new-media tools at our disposal to re-invent and strengthen objectivity, not to bury it.

The new networked media environment is a Tower of Babble, not an information age but a data age. Citizens need sources of information on which they can rely and agree, or they'll just retreat to their own biases and meaningful discourse will simply end.

In the old days this meant "trust us when we say we're objective." Today we have tools that can say "Here is the process by which we seek objectivity, and you are free to verify it, comment on it, participate in it."

The goal of objectivity is not fairness or balance: it is reliability and credibility. Objective information actually upsets rote "fairness" when one side of an argument is based on an obvious distortion. Objectivity should serve as our counterweight to distortion. It should be a primary goal of journalism and never surrendered easily. It doesn't replace fairness or balance, but objectivity should inform both.

It works for science (though it works slowly). Do we deserve less?

[Karen M.]

Oh, no-- please don't dismiss Objectivity, just because it has been abused by people with political agendas who pose as journalists without disclosing their biases (not to mention their benefactors!).

The point that Jon Stewart was making when he appeared on "Crossfire," is relevant here. At some point, one has to say exactly what something or someone is. Period. That does not undermine Objectivity.

Granted, the current climate has demanded an opposite POV-- in the interest of fairness or objectivity-- but has not been forthcoming with the analyses and conclusions that are needed. That is not the fault of Objectivity.

[Normand Corbeil]

i think that we are now well beyond this as a possible reform of journalism and media. the meida is now just patchwork quilt of press releases and neo-conservative rhetoric. there is no news or journalism, we are now simply the consumers of public relations. there is no objectivity in a system that is entirely owned by private interests. there is no freespeach and we are all losing the other rights to corporations. politics is now buiness and we are just part of the product.

[Dan Wood]

Objectivity is impossible because the source of the news can frame the common-sense concepts in the terminology they use. When the president's tax package is called the "tax relief" package, the media is merely passing along the name, but frame of the name evokes the notion that taxes are something that we need relief from, like an affliction -- not as an investment in our country's infrastructure. For more information, see George Lakoff's political books _Don't Think of an Elephant_ and _Moral Politics_ or his non-political books _Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things_ and _Metaphors We Live By_.

[Daniel Conover]

Re: Norman's statement: "i think that we are now well beyond this as a possible reform of journalism and media. the meida is now just patchwork quilt of press releases and neo-conservative rhetoric. there is no news or journalism, we are now simply the consumers of public relations"

That's powerful stuff, and in my darker hours I have agreed with him.

But I also think he's wrong, that as bad as it is (and it's pretty bad), there are still reasons to be optimistic. Journalism still occurs, and there are a few people out there who continue to operate under the corporate radar.

Here's my best reason for why we shouldn't declare the death of journalism: once the possibility of objective journalism is gone, with it goes all hope of meaningful dialog in this country. We'll just retreat to our ideological corners and come out swinging.

I'm not ready to give up just yet.

[Rich Miller]

Bravo, Dan. Objectivity has long been an artificial construct to insulate the media from allegations of favoritism. Readers realized long ago that reporters aren't really objective; they're just invoking objectivity when they write news stories. Objectivity became a joke when reporters began appearing on TV news shows to spout opinions (gasp!) about topics and personalities they cover. You can't turn objectivity "on" for news stories, and turn it back off again when a clever comment is needed for MSNBC. This is especially true in this age of specialized reporting. Beat reporters develop opinions about the issues and sources they cover every day. Let's stop pretending that they don't, and concentrate on standards that are reality-based and can rebuild confidence in journalism (whether appearing in "big media" or blogs). Your four pillars are an excellent start.

[fling93]

I don't think those four things add up to objectivity. The reason objectivity is less important in the blogosphere is because the sheer numbers and reader feedback will result in all sides of an issue being explored. Kinda similar to the "open-source" programming model which touts throwing tons of eyeballs at a bug, figuring that the odds are that the solution will be immediately obvious to somebody (who's either seen it before or happens to take the right approach).

This essay ought to mention that, and then go on to talk about how those four things help accelerate this process.

[Martin Conaghan]

Hi Dan, ou should have a look at the .

Many of the things you are talking about in this post are elaborated on at length. Grassroots journalists could do worse than pick up on some of the BBC's principles on impartiality, fairness, accuracy, integrity, independence etc.

[Martin Conaghan]

Apologies, that last comment went awry.

I was saying, you should have a look at the BBC's Producer's Guidelines here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/producer_guides/

It covers many of the items you mention in this post, including fairness, accuracy, impartiality, independence, privacy etc.

Grassroots journalists could do worse than follow the lead of the BBC....

[Jozef Imrich]

If a journalist, blogger, citizen covers the items you list in your first draft s/he is in fact striving for a large degree of objectivity. However, ever since the apple on the tree was eaten objectivity is in the apple of the reader's eye ...
Sydney Morning Herald like all papers faces dilemmas created by the interactive forums

[jeff]

"Objectivity" and "Fairness" brought us the Swift Boat liars. No major media outlet was willing to rip their lies apart for weeks, because now, all people have a right to be heard, even if what the say is a complete lie and outright slander.

[Anna]

"Sydney Morning Herald like all papers faces dilemmas created by the interactive forums"

Jozef, could you summarize what the article said? Registration is required.

[Ajax Bucky]

One thing that's different in my own journalistic diet these days is I have what amounts to a pixeled screen of journalistic product, ten or forty different subjective views in addition to ten or twenty mainline old-school "objective" journalistic reports.
Pointilism - instinct and an averaging-out that when it works gives a much wider and clearer picture, and is much less susceptible to spin and disinformation, because of its a-central nature.
A large volume of subjective viewpoints, taken from a wide enough swath of the spectrum, creates an objectivity that's not available in more traditional media formats.

[Eric]

Objectivity became journalism's watchword back in the 20s as a reaction to the freeform journalism (i.e. yellow) that preceeded it. But it went too far. It allowed Sen. McCarthy to pull a bunch of papers (from his trash can) out of his briefcase and claim "This is a list of communists in the State Department." Journalists were, literally, objective so they just reported what he said without analysis or criticism.

Since then, the profession's reaction to that form of objectivity as a nice "ultimate" to strive for, but in the end one that's impossible to put into practice, became a reality. So they came up with a list of principles similar to Dan's in the decades that follow.

At least that's what I learned in J-School (Mizzou) in the mid-80s. We knew objectivity was nonsense in an ontological sense. Although a lot of our colleagues didn't seem to realize it, and kept using the word.

Being a photojournalism student at Mizzou I was immersed in a tradition we inherited from Cliff Edom who said, "Show truth with a camera." Of course, literally objective photography is impossible, but we got what he meant. I know, I know: "What is truth?" If you can't answer that question, you shouldn't even try asking it. Okay? It's like objectivity. We all know what we mean by it. And weasle words trying to obscure, or deny, it's everyday meaning are just that. Weasel words.

So I think Dan is right on with this line of thought. It is part of a long line of reasoning that has been moving through the journalism community for the past 40 years. And it is about time it be discussed often and vigorously in the profession. Newsies need to incorporate a similar set of principles into their daily practice of the profession many of us spend so much of our lives practicing.

[sbw]

My archives are filled with comments on this. I won't belabor you.

"Objectivity" in journalism is a meta-tag that labels a variety of practices. It's a better a group label than a yardstick. Why? Because no two people will ever agree about its length. Put it on the shelf along with the equally ambiguous word "bias" (and, gosh, kept them away from academics at all cost).

Reporting that is bad is often mislabeled as "biased" or lacking "objectivity" when, on closer examination, it is bad for specific reasons, some of which Dan mentions.

When deciding what charateristics serve a journalist, remember that the journalist serves as the reader's surrogate -- to summarize and synthesize for those who can't be there. For the journalist to exercise no judgment is as misguided as presuming to make the reader's decisions for him.

[fERDI:)]

BTW sorry for interjecting, but to rusty: are you the rusty that created Kuro5hin? Love the site :)

And a second interjection: this blog (article) will surely cause a good many Journalism and Communication Sciences textbooks to be rewritten. And to think that this article is at the very least pseudo-'open'...

Though I'd think it'd be not-too-wise to turn this declaration into a Wiki; we need Communication Sciences profesors working on this (there's already one working on it ;) ) I would imagine, Mr Gilmor, that in order to avoid Wikipedia's Intellectualophobia problems that it would be better for you to actively obtain the cooperation of communication sciences experts in developing this article... from UIUC or Chicago perhaps? Or across the Atlantic?

Purely a suggestion, of course :)

And the third (this time almost purely off topic): shouldn't you put a link to the 'We the Media' blog on your sidebar, Sir? Or perhaps to the online copy of your book? And perhaps to Rebecca Blood (or her articles) and JOHO (or to the Cluetrain Manifesto)? And other blog activists? You know, to motivate trackback?

[Jozef Imrich]

Anna,

Extracts of note are provided below:

Webdiary is part of the Sydney Morning Herald and like the New York Times the registration is free...

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2. Disclose affiliations which you think could reasonably be perceived to affect what you write. For example, if you are writing about politics, disclose your membership of a political party.

3. Don't plagiarise, that is don't use the ideas of others without telling us where they came from, and don't copy the writings of others and pass them off as your own. There's no need. Put quotes around the words of other people, and tell us who they are and where you got them from. If you've used online sources for your contributions, include the links so others can follow them up.

4. Be truthful. Don't invent 'facts'. If you're caught out, expect to be corrected in Webdiary.

5. Robust debate is great, but don't indulge in personal attacks on other contributors.

6. Write in the first person. Remember, we're having a conversation here...

MEDIA ALLIANCE CODE OF ETHICS

Respect for truth and the public's right to information are fundamental principles of journalism. Journalists describe society to itself. They convey information, ideas and opinions, a privileged role. They search, disclose, record, question, entertain, suggest and remember. They inform citizens and animate democracy. They give a practical form to freedom of expression. Many journalists work in private enterprise, but all have these public responsibilities. They scrutinise power, but also exercise it, and should be accountable. Accountability engenders trust. Without trust, journalists do not fulfil their public responsibilities. MEAA members engaged in journalism commit themselves to

* Honesty; * Fairness; * Independence; * Respect for the rights of others

For a comprehensive discussion of Webdiary ethics, see Webdiary's ethics

[Daniel Conover]

"'Objectivity' and 'Fairness' brought us the Swift Boat liars. No major media outlet was willing to rip their lies apart for weeks, because now, all people have a right to be heard, even if what they say is a complete lie and outright slander." -- jeff

This is a great comment on how the media has failed to understand objectivity. Fairness does compell us to consider competing interpretation of facts, but objectivity should require us to render a judgment on the truthfulness of those interpretations and claims. Journalistic objectivity has been neutered, but objective judgement in science can be pretty harsh. Again, we're talking process here, but its a process that produces results if it's done properly. the good news is, if done honestly and openly, the process cuts in all directions.

"A large volume of subjective viewpoints, taken from a wide enough swath of the spectrum, creates an objectivity that's not available in more traditional media formats." -- Ajax Bucky

Another great comment Pointilistic objectivity?), and right on the mark. But what isn't mentioned is equally important: If everyone had the time, inclination and expertise to read everything, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Most people do not, will not and cannot. We're at overload already.

The value of agreed-upon standards of objectivity in media is that they would give us some degree of confidence in certain types of information.

Example: Social Security is about to become a hot topic, and it's extremely complex. How many of us plan to go back and read the source materials to verify the claims of the partisans? If not, then you are depending upon various levels of intermediaries. When push comes to shove, how do you KNOW that the interpretation you select is more accurate than your opponent's? And if there is no chance of practical, objective arbitration of public claims, what is the future of the debate?

[Fred Schecker]

Dan,

I'm still struggling with the notion - it seems as if something important is being lost - but mainstream, dead tree journalists have been pondering the inadaquacy of objectivity as a fundamental value for some time.

Even a traditionalist such as Jack Fuller of the Chicago Tribune has suggested that "intellectual honesty" is a better goal than objectivity. And his description of intellectual honesty is remarkably similar to yours. (If you haven't already, check out Fuller's book: News Values: Ideas for an Information Age, 1997).

I bring this up not because I take issue with anything you have said, but we shouldn't consider this a "new media" idea. Print and online journalists alike are struggling with this notion. I'm not sure 90 percent of bloggers are, however. They seem content with attracting attention.

(And won't it be nice when we don't have to make the distinction between print and online journalists?)

[hji]

Dan,

Great points. And it reminds me a documentary I saw recently, the Control room.

Not sure if you've seen it. It talks about how news is "made" by the US military and Al Jazeera. Very insightful and thought-provoking. Highly, highly, highly recommended!!!

[Rachel]

Excellent post. Makes me think fondly of the time I spent editing a local monthly, and how often these issues came into play in our editorial meetings.

I don't consciously think of this stuff when I blog, maybe because almost no one claims to be objective about theology. But fairness, accuracy, transparency and thoroughness are still valuable qualities to strive for, even in totally non-news-oriented posts.

[rusty]

ferdi: I used to be that rusty, but I haven't checked in a while. I might not be anymore.

[Jozef Imrich]

It appears that the entire blogosphere and the journalistic world is sharing this thought provoking piece.

This is a kind of train of ideas that George Orwell would be proud of...

PS: article of note - American ABC on ethics and objectivity ...

[JennyD]

Dan, I think it's time that journalists borrowed something from academics (lord I shudder a litle at the thought). They need to be tranparent about their methods.

It's not enough to write a story and leave me guessing where it came from, who said what, how many people actually said it, what axes they were grinding in the process. The work of obtaining and building a story is they mystery of journalism, and I think it's time to show the public what's behind the curtain.

If it's good, then journalism is stronger for it. It the methods are poor, then journalism suffers. But isn't what the whole enterprise is about, shining a bright light in dark places in a search for some truth.

[sylvain Attal]

High Dan. I have recomended your blog o the french public. on my URL , I am myself a journalist and try to have a reflexion alike.

[Rob Hyndman]

I've been wondering about this for a while now, and I am beginning to wonder whether ostensible objectivity is a quaint relic of a different time. This is not an original idea (indeed Jon Garfunkel alludes to this in a comment above), but perhaps the point is that now, with so many more voices, competition truly makes objectivity (and the proxies you mention) moot.

I am beginning to believe that as long as there are (audible) voices that allow me to inform myself with the range of ideas I need to function in society, I can decide for myself just how 'objective' I need those voices to be. And that is the true power of the network.

I know Fox is not objective, and I know the Village Voice isn't either. That's OK. I'm a grownup now, and I can consume their information and take what I need from it. In fact, their lack of objectivity may help me to view the world rationally - if Fox is beating a particular drum, knowing their bias I can draw conclusions about that particular drum.

There will always be a market for what the NYT brings to the table, ditto Fox, (hopefully) ditto the Village Voice. There will always be a market for accuracy and for a point of view. The internet has exploded the monolithic power of a few voices and will ensure that where there were few, there will now be many. And through the bump and grind and din of that marketplace, I will be informed. That to my mind is the power of grassroots journalism ....

[Bruce Winter]

Objectivity as encased in the four pillars Thoroughness Accuracy Fairness and Transparency are the cornerstones to fundamental change in the enterprise of blogging. When the norms become standard practice, a new enterprise era has begun!

[Meng Weng Wong]

So there is an argument that the long tail means society will descend into a chaos of cultural relativism, of subjectivity and solipsism. We will see a proliferation of sects, each of which subscribes to a worldview different from every other. For example, creationism versus evolution, writ large: we'll have black creationist lesbians against abortion versus Asian Darwinist transsexuals for gun control. And it won't be "against" in the sense of dialectical debate --- it'll just be "against" in the sense of "denying the validity of", which is insidious.

That argument assumes subjectivity arises from choice: given two worldviews, people will somehow glom on to one and remain wilfully ignorant of the other. Repeat ten times and we have a thousand different worlds. We humanist technocrats worry for these people because the long tail makes this possible.

Then I thought, maybe we've got it wrong. Maybe this sort of dangerous subjectivity is actually founded on the belief that everybody else thinks as you do: it is a lack of exposure to different ideas. What we're afraid of is really just a mass provincialism, where everyone wears blinkers.

But nobody wants to wear blinkers. It goes against human nature. The university students at Tiananmen showed that. The Muslim women's movement shows that. The very fact that we find creationists and neoconservative mullahs weird in the related ways shows that they're the exception that proves the rule. And the rule is the nonzero trend towards better education in the service of liberty. (Nonzero, Jared Diamond.)

The long tail is the exact antithesis of blinkeredness. With the long tail it becomes impossible for you to ignore alternative worldviews: it is plain as day that other people don't think as you do. It is evident that other people on Amazon don't buy the same books that I do: that fact hits me in the face every time I choose not to buy what Amazon recommends. It reminds me that there are people who think very near me, but still think differently. And that knowledge invites an exploration of other ideas. Sampling becomes natural. If you buy your magazines at a newsstand you can't help touching, even if you're only physically moving aside, other magazines that contain different ideas than the ones you're after. The larger the newsstand, the more magazines you have to browse past. Of course if this were Soviet-era Russia the newsstand would only have two magazines and they both say the same thing. But anywhere else, more choice means more diversity, diversity that's in your face. And, of course, the Long Tail is the largest newsstand in the world.

So I don't think we need to worry. The wisdom of crowds (Surowiecki) will emerge. On balance, the Long Tail promotes education and diversity more than narrowmindedness.

[Paul Bass]

Re: End of Objectivity

As a reporter for "straight"/mainstream papers as well as for altweeklies, I've found both the myth of objectivity--and the reaction by alternative journalists--troubling.

I agree with the critique of objectivity. It doesn't exist. In practice, it enshrines a set of assumptions as non-opinionated: capitalism is good; America's enemies are bad countries; free markets in America are indeed free; people who don't challenge the basic assumptions of American liberal democracy are legitimate sources of information... etc.

But there's a danger of ditching the rules of "objectivity," much like the dangers of ditching scales to play free music without at least understanding some of the reasoning first, without first mastering the narrow rules. Fairness and credibility too often go out the window.

I've found that the most important of Dan's four principles is fairness. YOu have to know in your heart as a reporter that you're bending over backwards to understand and honestly represent the arguments that disagree with your point of view, and the facts that are inconvenient to your conclusions.

In the alternative press, at a local level, I found that by being open about my point of view--but always going the extra mile to engage people who disagree with me--I could earn the trust of readers. The majority of my readers and sources for stories disagreed with me, but enjoyed the exchange of ideas, the chance to continue the conversation....

[Mathias Hellsten]

I like this article. It's time we realize that it's a myth that people can be "objective". But still we need to strive for the highest level of fairness and objectivity we can reach. :) Keep up the good work.

[Mark Deuze]

Perhaps we can use Jean Baudrillard here (I quote): "Theoretical violence, not truth, is the only resource left to us." In the context of journalism this would mean: if we accept for a moment that all mediated information is a construct/ an interpretation, (regardless how ethical the informer worked on it), we cannot attack nor defend journalism (as a process or product) using 'truth'. We can only, as Matthew said above, strive for the utmost diversity of interpretations in media.

Professional journalism is very much tied into the history of modernity with its emphasis on the possibility of a 'one size fits all' reading of events. Today's citizens either do not care, or have long moved on and created their own, individual readings of events. For journalism to survive, it has to embrace this mindset.

[Rachel Pashkin]

Thank you for putting into words what most concerned Americans have been thinking for years. Change has to begin somewhere.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has,"
-Margaret Mead

[Tom Bradley]

I think the main reason bloggers have jumped to support the "death of objectivity" argument is that it makes no sense as a guiding principle for their own activities. But I still believe it is necessary for traditional journalism to serve its democratic function.

People have come to equate objectivity with what I call "balance," and its appalling result - news stories that merely offer up statements from official sources on either side of the fence, with no true investigation or conclusion based on independent evidence. In fact, objectivity is the opposite. Look it up in Webster's; objectivity is a commitment to the idea that truth exists "outside the mind," that truth does exist outside the restriction of biases and prejudices. If journalists don't try to identify that independent, objective truth, then we are condemned to a journalism of conflicting truths, conflicting realities. The source of the information gains primacy -- the guy who thinks like me said this, so this must be true.

In a bipartisan (at least) political environment, some source is needed that says, "We have evaluated the objective reality of all statements, and here's the one that holds the most water." And that source must be trusted - its commitment to objectivity must be its primary raison d'etre. I fear we are headed now for a journalistic Tower of Babel, based on pre-existing, competing and combating world views with no hope of changing minds based on the presentation of objective truths from a trusted source.