A Look at Objectivity in the American Media
When those towers crashed on that September day every American had something to verbalize. The people, in one historic moment, felt united in their collective sorrow and turned to one another for comfort. They conversed; and those conversations led to questions. When the country turned to those it should be able to trust for honest-to-God answers-particularly the president and the media-what it got was one objective resolution: war. That objectivity evoked a sentiment that instantaneously tore this nation apart. Objectivity, as long as it dominates all of the U.S. media’s mediums, will continue to provide embellished information, banal commentaries, and a stupefaction of its audiences-an overall journalistic failure.
Face the fact: just because this particular form of journalism is dominant obviously doesn’t mean that it is the best. Though the idea of reporting a story from a nonpartisan vantage point may sound justifiable, this perspective proves to be incompetent in conveying the subject matter. By obtaining both sides of the story and sticking straight to the bare facts there is a detachment from the journalistic duty of pursuing the whole truth, which conveys a distinct judgment on the subject matter. For instance, in English reporting a distinct stance is given on an issue after the matter is fully researched, whether it is liberal or conservative, comfortably. In America this simply would not stand; the attitude here is that the press must remain neutral, at all costs.
In an online debate hosted by The Columbia Journalism Review, Michael Getler of The Washington Post and Leonard Doyle of The Independent in London argued this issue. Doyle contends, “A journalist’s job is always to inform the powerless about that which the powerful would rather keep secret. If objectivity is the gold standard, then we must associate that word with fairness, honesty, and an acute sense of injustice – and not an all-encompassing and spurious right of reply designed to protect reporters and their news organizations from powerful interests and their own governments.” Yet Getler still believes, “What is most crucial for news organizations, and what is most useful to the public, is news that is delivered in a manner that is beyond reproach journalistically. Readers understand, and can factor in, government or special-interest spin.”
Or can they? In his article “Rethinking Objectivity” Brent Cunningham begs to differ. He says there is “âÂ?¦a particular failure of the press: allowing the principle of objectivity to make us passive recipients of news, rather than aggressive analyzers and explainers of it.” The European model of partisan journalism allows the journalist to report a story that can be emotionally rousing to its audience, for better or worse, whereas the American model of objective journalism frowns upon those who tamper with the mind-set of the status quo. The latter prefers to keep the social thermometer lukewarm, wary to project that something is wrong with the status quo.
One of the best examples of this ineffective cautiousness is the coverage during the establishment of the forthcoming Iraq war’s rationale. No insight whatsoever was provided regarding repercussions in the stories. Rather, the reporters stuck to what was out in the open, relying on the bare minimum of the White House’s press releases that were required to get their stories done before deadline-all of which have turned out to be spun by the administration. In an objective press, it is more important to keep people up to date on everything that’s happening than to inform them of something very important that might end up happening. The major media outlets failed to listen to the intellectually elite, the humanitarians, the veterans, and the war experts out of fear of being critical or wrong, and that is just plain wrong. In regards to the war coverage Cunningham states, “The press not only could have prepared the nation and its leadership for the aftermath we are now witnessing, but should have.”
Too many have been victimized in this war already and the U.S. media is partly responsible. Firstly, they are too dependent on official reports; indeed they are easily obtainable, and even easier to structure a story around, but there is a vast amount of other sources that need to be reviewed. It is imperative that alternative information be presented alongside what is being fed to us from Washington-this criticism is where the real story begins. As Cunningham reports, “According to numbers from the media analyst Andrew Tyndall, of the 414 stories on Iraq broadcast on ABC, NBC, and CBS from last September to February, all but 34 originated at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. So we end up with too much of the ‘official’ truth.”
Secondly, it is the media’s willingness to go with the flow that has proven to be the most devastating to the field. Rather than pursue independency from trends, such as those in the tabloids, the objective journalist reports as if he or she was working for the tabloids. Repeatedly, the minds of audiences are assaulted by the hot ticket story. When news breaks, the press swarms, only to regurgitate the same facts in the ideal form. “In short, the press’s awkward embrace of an impossible ideal limits its ability to set the agenda,” says Cunningham.
Finally, the press is too circumspect when it comes down to questioning those they adhere to; namely the president. Certainly it can be a bit intimidating: the ridicule, the loss of your press pass, and/or the possible loss of your job-evidently the dominion of objectivity is that concrete. Just look at what Cunningham writes: “Jonathan Weisman, an Economics writer for The Washington Post, says this about the fear of losing access: ‘If you are perceived as having a political bias, or a slant, you’re screwed.'” However, this is the primary objective of those who report the news: to question those in control for the good of the common man. The question remains: which mode of journalism is better for the common constituent?
Though it would seem that the partisan model, which provides for a more vivacious storyline, stands strong it should be considered that the vast majority of Americans already flock to the overabundance of opinionated reporting-almost all of which are conservative. This brings on the argument of bias in the objective media to which there cannot and will not be a resolution. It is, however, made evident that there is a lack of liberal viewpoints in the corporate-owned media. The time has come for the news to emulate the lives of its viewers: shove two radically different partisanships onto one common ground, forget about everything that happened pre-9/11 and shift the informational paradigm.
Works Cited
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/4/objective-cunningham.asp
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/3/brits-yanks.asp Columbia Journalism Review
