Ep. 102: The Conservative Sanctimony of Journalistic Impartiality
Added 2020-02-26 17:55:47 +0000 UTCOne of the most prized professional norms for journalists, particularly the United States, is the preservation of neutrality in reporting. While the concept of “objectivity” has fallen out of fashion among mainstream reportage in recent years, related concepts that convey a similar idea such as “impartiality” and “neutrality” have come to replace it. In their mission statements and codes of ethics, corporate and government owned outlets routinely proclaim the importance of impartiality and balance, in the sanctified pursuit of fair, unbiased reporting.
In theory, this can be a healthy idea. Distinguishing between so-called opinion or editorial versus neutral, down-the-middle reporting –“objectivity” or “impartiality” can give the reader a sense that a series of facts are being reported rather than some guy’s opinion.
The fundamental problem is when this vaguely aspirational genre morphs into an unchecked ideology––an ideology that requires one to think we live in a world where said facts are curated and created outside of long-existing power structures; that those who produce, on an institutional scale, knowledge products via think tanks and academic institutions are without bias. That journalistic institutions, funded by large corporations and billionaires themselves, don’t decide which neutral facts are important and which aren’t.
“Objectivity” that doesn’t calibrate power asymmetries or attempt to account for its own institutional ideology isn’t a mode of reporting, it’s conservative conditioning that––if not in intent, in effect––does little more than advance prevailing ruling class ideology. Indeed, anyone who’s ever studied marketing or PR or propaganda will tell you the most effective messaging is that which appears unbiased and impartial.
On today’s show, we’ll examine how objectivity came to be a defining principle of Western journalism and how U.S. media’s understanding of impartiality provides an urbane veneer for racism, homophobia, anti-poor policies and other reactionary currents.
We are joined this week by journalist Lewis Raven Wallace, author of The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity.
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Guest
Lewis Raven Wallace is an award-winning radio and print journalist. He is the author of The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity, and hosts the podcast, "The View From Nowhere." He is also co-founder and the national program director for Press On, a southern journalism collective that supports journalism in service of liberation.
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Show Notes
Objectivity is dead, and I’m okay with it
Lewis Raven Wallace | January 27, 2017 | Medium
I was fired from my journalism job ten days into Trump
Lewis Raven Wallace | January 31, 2017 | Medium
Will Meyer | February 6, 2020 | The New Republic
Marissa Brostoff | Dec/Jan 2020 | BookForum
Britain secretly funded Reuters in 1960s and 1970s: documents
Guy Faulconbridge | January 13, 2020 | Reuters
The Invention of Journalistic Objectivity
Livia Gershon | August 6, 2019 | JStor Daily
The American experiment was built on a government-supported press
Will Meyer | May 7, 2018 | Columbia Journalism Review
Objective Journalism Doesn’t Exist
Ajay V. Singh | October 22, 2019 | The Harvard Crimson
Kim Kelly | August 8, 2019 | Columbia Journalism Review
The Reality-Based Community And Trump’s Orwellian Dystopia
Milton Mankoff | December 8, 2016 | Huffington Post
Objectively bad: Ezra Klein, Nate Silver, Jonathan Chait and return of the "view from nowhere"
Elias Isquith | April 12, 2014 | Salon
Bill Siemering’s ‘National Public Radio Purposes’, 1970
Bill Siemering | May 17, 2012 | Current
Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?
Arthur S. Brisbane | January 12, 2012 | The New York Times
We Have No Idea Who’s Right: Criticizing “he said, she said” journalism at NPR
Jay Rosen | September 15, 2011 | PressThink
Why Political Coverage is Broken
Jay Rosen | August 26, 2011 | PressThink
How the Leader of the OAS Became a Right-Wing Hawk—And Paved the Way for Bolivia’s Coup
Branko Marcetic | November 21, 2019 | In The Times
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Transcript
For a full transcript of this episode, go here.
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Comments
Currently reading through Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Con{s|t}ent" which should be required reading for this episode. One of the source's he lists is, "Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen's Notions of Objectivity" (Tuchman) which touches on the media's tactics to appear as objective while obscuring the fact that minimal source checking was done. Here's a link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246988634_Objectivity_as_Strategic_Ritual_An_Examination_of_Newsmen's_Notions_of_Objectivity
2020-03-01 18:40:22 +0000 UTChttps://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst
2020-02-28 15:43:33 +0000 UTCAre the episodes transcribed somewhere? Some very quotable moments in this ep.
Coupcumber
2020-02-28 01:54:15 +0000 UTCGreat listen, and Louis was very interesting. Curious: applying this model, how would you qualify the reporting by wire agencies like Reuters and the AP? As the closest thing to "objective" reporting, flatly stated, I tend to take these sources largely on their word. It seems to me that the nature of potential shortcomings would be in selective reporting and omission of certain stories, which is by definition unavoidable as you approach a benchmark of informational availability, or notability.
2020-02-27 21:58:56 +0000 UTCgreat job on the show :) thanks again
Abby the Spoon Lady
2020-02-27 00:40:22 +0000 UTC
