objectivity in the media

Terry Moran has a very interesting piece on his ABCNews Blog. He tells how a NY Times reporter (Michael Gordon) is chastised by his superiors for voicing his own opinion while appearing on the Charlie Rose Show. Really, go read the full article, I hate summarizing, but here is what you need to know from his post in order to get my response (which is pasted below).

The New York Times has publicly reprimanded reporter Michael Gordon--a great journalist, author of the definitive Iraq War book Cobra II--for saying in a television interview that he thinks the US can still win the war.

Gordon was on The Charlie Rose Show on January 8th and was asked if he believed "victory was within our grasp."

...

All this raises some interesting questions for those of us in the media, and for the public we serve. Should reporters want the US to win the war in Iraq? Whatever their personal judgment, should reporters say whether or not they believe the US can win the war? What role, if any, should patriotism play in the reporting of the United States at war?
...

"Objectivity" became the lodestar of reporting, and a notion took hold that a journalist should cover events as neutrally as possible, without taking sides. This meant that reporters acted as independent observers and voices, in the hope of earning the trust and respect of the public.

But it seems to me there was always a built-in tension in this approach. There is no such thing as a person who is so untethered to any community--national, racial, religious, etc--that she or he is able to gain a truly "objective" view of things. We are all contingent creatures. We all know this. And when your country is at war, the tension becomes acute.

There was a lot more in here, including a bit about WWII reporter Ernie Pyle. Read the whole thing, it won't kill you.

Here though, is my response:

If you are a follower of economics, it seems pretty clear a growing portion of the American public has no real "demand" for unbiased journalism. What else can explain the dominance of Fox News, the uprising of political blogs, and the diminishing circulation of old fashioned newspapers?

Phil S. says it perfectly, although I would go as far as to say that all "objective journalists" do it: "slant their stories unwittingly." I don't think it is devious or malicious on the part of journalists, but like Terry notes, "There is no such thing as a person who is so untethered to any community." Meaning all stories are unwittingly slanted. So why do old school media types like the New York Times still insist on objectivity from their workers? Makes no sense to me.

Chuck Klosterman has a different take. He wrote a great essay about objectivity in the media in his book "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs." His take is:

"Everybody seems to be concerned that journalists are constantly trying to slip their own political and philosophical beliefs into what they cover. This virtually never happens. And I am not being naive when I say this; it really doesn't happen. There are thousands of things that affect the accuracy of news stories, but the feelings of the actual reporter is almost never one of them. The single most important impact of any story is far less sinister: Mostly it all comes down to (a) who the journalist has called, and (b) which of those people happens to call back first."

It seems to me this is more apt as pertaining to local media coverage, but it is interesting coming from a person within the media. His main point is that journalism under deadlines will never capture the whole story, as well as pointing out that that most people insert their own biases into the stories they read; not that reporters are covertly slipping theirs in. Interesting point, and something we are seeing here on this blog. While Sunny thinks the NY Times is a liberal rag, I think Fox News is a conservative shrill. Are either true? No. Not really. But that is how we both perceive them.

I recently read an Obama piece in the NY Times (which I perceive to have a pro-Hillary bias), that I came away thinking the reporter had an anti-Obama bias. But you see, I already held that presumption going into the article, so not surprisingly, that is what I came away with. The same is true of Iraq stories, if you are already for the war, any story you come across that speaks to the nastiness of the war is perceived as a liberal critique bordering on treason, while on the other side any story that tries to trumpet the good that is resulting from U.S. intervention (I can't believe I just wrote that), is perceived as propaganda by anti-war types (obviously, like me).

Basically, it's a no-win situation. Reporters can't be purely objective, because that is just impossible; and even if they could be objective, some portion of the public will never perceive it that way.

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So, that is that. For the record, I decided to cut out this part, which if you read the comments to Terry Moran's post and are anything like me, was very hard to do:

Sunny, the cold war "hero" (funny, I always ignorantly thought it was the nuclear warheads that kept the Soviets at bay), sounds more like the fascists we were fighting in WWII than a real patriot to me.

But it's a good thing I didn't write that, methinks. Sunny sounds violent.