In Defense of Objectivity, by Martin Baron

Long opinion piece by Marty Baron. Well argued.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...objectivity-trump-misinformation-marty-baron/

Objectivity in journalism has attracted a lot of attention lately. It also is a subject that has suffered from confusion and an abundance of distortion.

I’m about to do something terribly unpopular in my profession these days: Defend the idea.


Agree? Disagree?

 

Seems like something better suited for CJR or Poynter, not the WaPo opinion section. I read it and agree with it, but who is he trying to reach here? Seems more a call for journalists to do better at their jobs than anything else.

 

Baron is one of the historically great American newspaper editors. That said, IMO even defining "objectivity" is a matter more for philosophers than newspaper folk.

 

Meanwhile, Leonard Downie Jr. makes the case for advocacy journalism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/30/newsrooms-news-reporting-objectivity-diversity/

I'd certainly have an easier time aligning behind Baron's take.

This passage from Downie confounds me. Don't tell me that you don't champion objectivity in one breath, and then say you're all about fairness and nonpartisanship in the next.

 

This topic reminds me of something I heard at the only journalism/"Up with the profession ... yea!" conference I ever went to. It was shortly after that little grade-school girl died in a plane crash when her whack-brained dad wanted to make her the youngest "pilot" to fly across the country or something.

The speaker of one session I attended was Richard Ben Cramer. He was talking about how objectivity/fairness/disinterest/whatever leads to stories that have the following headline:
Panel
raps
unit

And such a story would lead with the procedural news of how some overseeing body (like a city council) found fault with the performance of some subordinate commission (like a public housing commission), and there was much teeth-gnashing among the office holders/commissioners and pledges to do better.

What he advocated was a more ... I don't know, involved or personal touch. What did it mean for the public housing commission to screw the pooch? What did that look like for the people involved? He drew a parallel with the girl pilot, and said, essentially, a story could read like a straight AP lead (and get the Panel / raps / unit headline) or it could offer the perspective of outrage and amazement over any whack-brained parent allowing a girl to try something so stupid.

When a conference-goer asked something to the effect of, "What gives a reporter the license to essentially pass judgment on the situation?" he shouted, "The cardinal number seven after the girl's name!"

Pretty effective answer.

I'll point out that every Reuters article I've read about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there is a line about Russia calling it a special military operation. That line is often weaved into a sentence showing that Russia is very much the aggressor and very much the transgressor.

 

The internet certainly did its part to kill newspapers. But so did the journalists who thought they needed to explain right and wrong to the masses beyond the editorial and op-ed pages.

 

For the sake of argument, I'll take the contra here.

Marty makes a telling mistake when he says doctors are objective.

Doctors take a set of facts - and then interpret them.

As do journalists.

Admitting so is the first step toward honesty, transparency and fairness.

White straight Christian male has been the default setting for 'objectivity' in journalism for decades. Of course that's not in any way objective. It's a point of view. Anywhere you stand to observe something is a specific point of view.

I urge students then to think in terms of the kind Downey mentions - transparency, fairness, honesty, disinterest. I add 'kindness' to this as well

Strive for 'objectivity' all you want, but if you're not questioning your own prejudices and preconceptions when you do your reporting, you're never gonna get there.

 

For the sake of argument, I’ll point out that doctors have education, skill set and background that qualifies them to interpret what facts mean.

Journalists, all too often in 2023, do not.

 

Completely agree.

Another failure of the Baron comparison.

 

I asked that very question earlier in the thread.

 

Baron has the heft to provide concrete examples and didn’t. He just talks around what he thinks is happening.