Is disclosing bias more honest than pretending to be objective?
Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.: The End of Objectivity (Version 0.91)
There were good business reasons to be "objective," too, not least that a newspaper didn't want to make large parts of its community angry. And, no doubt, libel law has played a role, too. If a publication could say it "got both sides," perhaps a libel plaintiff would have more trouble winning.
Again, the idea of objectivity is a worthy one. But we are human. We have biases and backgrounds and a variety of conflicts that we bring to our jobs every day.
I'd like to toss out objectivity as a goal, however, and replace it with four other notions that may add up to the same thing. They are pillars of good journalism: thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency.
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It took a while to scroll down to the comments of this blog, but it was well worth it. People from all walks of the journalistic field were represented here. Thanks for including this.
I understand what Gillmor is addressing. I, perhaps naively, press myself to be as objective as possible to both sides when I report, but sometimes my efforts just sound patronizing, like I have to include one side or another, rather than truly value their opinion as instrumental in the coverage.
That is the difference. The value of the story over your opinions as a person. When I write an article, I ask myself what my purpose for writing this article is: to educate, to acknowledge an event, or to advocate a certain stance.
While I try to stray from my personal bias in writing news stories, it is still there, but one should also realize that that is not an excuse. The article, the audience should be of utmost importance, rather than the individual writer's application of bias to the event. You can't take "you" from your article, but you can tone it down to depict events more fairly.