Behind the News

The Objectivity Problem

Frustration persists, but there’s no quick fix

• Print
• Email
• Comments
• Single page

Over the weekend, Mark Kleiman resurrected the well-worn objectivity conundrum. Kleiman says that while a reporter’s job—for a hundred years or so now—has been to simply convey the facts, without adding his opinion to the mix, “this creates a problem when a reporter has to report false statements, especially by candidates for office. If a candidate says that the Earth is flat…should the reporter “objectively” simply report the statement, or should she add the objective fact that the world is actually round?”

Kevin Drum picked up on the theme, adding that no matter the merits of Kleiman’s critique, he still hasn’t seen anyone offer a solution to the problem. He identifies the difficulties inherent in trying to change the way contemporary American journalism practices its craft: “Who gets to decide whether an issue is still debatable? The reporter? But most reporters aren’t subject matter experts. Would you trust the average reporter to take on this role on a daily basis? And even if we do believe reporters should be routine arbiters of the truth, how exactly should they express this? Flatly call things lies? Insert contrary evidence in their own voice whenever they decide someone has crossed the line?”

These are all legitimate concerns, and not one of them is easily solved. The issue of “objectivity” in reporting is something CJR has long grappled with, and there’s no quick fix for what has become one of the most prominent criticisms of American journalism. If reporters start serving as the arbiters of factual disputes, charges of bias—already prevalent and shrill—would surely escalate. Still, simply reprinting obvious falsehoods along with a countervailing point of view is a frustrating, and indeed damaging, way to practice journalism.

So what is to be done? Matt Yglesias picked up the thread on the debate this morning, arguing that a market-orientated approach is the way to go: “As we move toward a world where the internet provides consumers with a large degree of choice, managers and reporters who manage to consistently cover the news in a way that people find useful will prosper, while those who fail to do so will suffer.”

There’s a good point in there somewhere, but his take sounds a bit too simplistic. This isn’t to say that the objectivity problem is unsolvable, only that it’s going to take time, and it will have to be done incrementally. For better or worse, our newspapers produce the vast majority of original reporting being done today. While much too much of it is marred by the ineffectual back and forth as dictated by the need for “balance,” the best of it produces the kind of public service journalism—warrant-less wiretapping, CIA “black sites,” Walter Reed, to name a few—that the Web hasn’t been able to equal.

But for all the hard-reporting success, newspapers should think seriously about shaking up their formats. A good way to start would be to develop a kind of two-tier system—which seems to be developing organically, anyway—where the big news organizations deliver the goods in the form of hard news and investigative pieces whose production requires the kind of investment in time and money that most Web sites and blogs can’t match, while the blogosphere takes the lead in opinion writing and analysis. In fact, it doesn’t seem implausible that some time in the not too distant future, newspapers will choose to get out of the op-ed business altogether, ceding that niche to the sharpest minds on the Web. It’s one thing that the Web does much better than traditional media, since in many ways it is a true meritocracy, in the way that Yglesias describes, and not the old boys club of too many calcified newspaper op-ed pages.

CJR

If you enjoy this kind of press criticism please consider a subscription to our magazine, Columbia Journalism Review—a deal via the Web site at $19.95.

To subscribe, to give CJR as a gift, to renew, or to check student and CJR in the Classroom rates, click here.

Comments

padikiller

Wed 15 Aug 2007 10:38 AM

Hmmm....

Where to start in the fight to secure objective journalism?..

Well, perhaps the first thing the NY Times might want to do is stop its employees from vandalizing wiki articles about conservatives.

You're not going to see CJR cover the story, but apparently NY Times staffers have been spending some their time defacing Wikipedia and WSJ Wiki entries.

Kinda just MIGHT be a little problematic to have "professional journalists" with an IP addresses registered to the NY Times editing the Wikipedia entry for the President of the United States to read "jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk jerk"..

Or editing Tom Delay's article to clai that he is the "Grand Dragon of the Republican Party"

You think?...

Maybe just a tad of subtle bias there, if you read between the lines?

padikiller

Wed 15 Aug 2007 11:32 AM

You might also have teensy-weeny little "objectivity" problem when a bunch of editors at the Seattle Times stand up during a staff meeting and cheer the news that Karl rove is resigning.

You think?...

HUH?...

jtdub

Wed 15 Aug 2007 06:23 PM

It may be unlikely that there will be a piece in CJR about the new Wiki search program and what it has uncovered.

You left out some choice bits though:

Fox News IP removes mentions of controversies to different article.

Israeli govt. IP completely removes article on West Bank barrier.

Diebold edits entry on own company and controversy of voting machines.

Dow IP purges entire "Environmental and Human Rights controversies" section.

Oops. I forgot to add the most important of all rhetorical devices- ellipses and words in all caps.

LIKE THIS?....

Right?....

Haha. Give me a break.

padikiller

Wed 15 Aug 2007 08:42 PM

jtdub wrote

It may be unlikely that there will be a piece in CJR about the new Wiki search program and what it has uncovered.

You left out some choice bits though:

Fox News IP removes mentions of controversies to different article.

padikiller responds

It appears that whoever edited the article in question transferred some information to a new, separate article dedicated to the controversies. This information was not removed.

However, if Fox News employees are playing games like the NYT and Washington Post employees are, then they should be disciplined.

I do not believe in a double-standard.

jtdub dodges

Israeli govt. IP completely removes article on West Bank barrier.

padikiller responds

So?... The Israeli government is not a news operation. It appears that the Palestinian terrorist organizations (including their propoganda arm Al-Jazeera) have also been busy. What exactly is your point here?

jtdub apparently can't distinguish news operations from governments or industrial manufacturers

Diebold edits entry on own company and controversy of voting machines.

padikiller reiterates

Diebold is NOT a news company.

We're talking about bias in NEWS companies... Remember?

jtdub wanders further afield

Dow IP purges entire "Environmental and Human Rights controversies" section.

padikiller responds

Once again... Dow Chemical is NOT a news outlet.

Nice try, my liberal friend, but NO cigar for you!

Better luck next time.

padikiller

Thu 16 Aug 2007 11:08 AM

There just MIGHT be a journalistic "objectivity" problem when a group of reporters in the MSNBC newsroom jeers and boos the President of the United States during the State of the Union address.

You think?...