Posted on 08/23/2014 10:26:56 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Back in 1990, Richard Streckfuss, an Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln wrote a paper titled "Objectivity in Journalism", in which he makes finding the answer to this question remarkably easy. Before the phrase "Objective Journalism" was born, science and news gathering were fused together in thought by Walter Lippmann, the Father of Modern Journalism. Realistically speaking, this one single thing is what earns Lippmann that title. Lippmann's ideal of the objective journalist can be found here, in his book titled "Liberty and the News", on page 82:
With this increase of prestige must go a professional training in journalism in which the ideal of objective testimony is cardinal. The cynicism of the trade needs to be abandoned, for the true patterns of the journalistic apprentice are not the slick persons who scoop the news, but the patient and fearless men of science who have labored to see what the world really is. It does not matter that the news is not susceptible of mathematical statement. In fact, just because news is complex and slippery, good reporting requires the exercise of the highest of the scientific virtues. They are the habits of ascribing no more credibility to a statement than it warrants, a nice sense of the probabilities, and a keen understanding of the quantitative importance of particular facts.
From there, an entire industry is born. Prior to Walter Lippmann, newspapers were either wildly sensationalist or they bore the name of a political party. Generally, the name of the political party in their title reflected the paper's partisan view. Such papers do still exist today, one such paper can be found Florida's Capital - the Tallahassee Democrat - but they are far and few inbetween compared to what they once were.
Lippmann's paragraph-long explanation is easily summed up in the book "The Elements of Journalism", on page 74:
in other words, the method is objective, not the journalist.
Of course, all of this is undermined by the dark side of modern journalism: its foundation of using strategically placed words to manipulate the readers.(Lippmann writes at length about how to manipulate the reading audience, here)
In addition to showing us where the ideal for so-called "objective journalism" comes from - the spirit of objective journalism; professor Streckfuss also puts on display where objectivity really gets fused together with journalism. In 1924, Nelson Antrim Crawford wrote a book titled "The Ethics of Journalism", in which he wrote the following:
"Aside from integrity, intelligence and objective-mindedness are the qualities most needed."
That's how these things get started. Note that Crawford did not come up with this idea all on his own by just plucking it out of thin air. A page search of Crawford's book reveals references to Walter Lippmann 20+ times.
Walter Lippmann really is the Father of Modern Journalism.
I remember those days when the reader had responsibility to discern and not hand over the responsibility to claims of "objective journalism" by mere employees of the MSM like today.
With the partisan new alternate media we finally have a free press again.
TV practically destroyed free speech. It got to the point, as newspapers disappeared, where liberals could make the argument that one hour a week of Buckley's Firing Line on PBS was all the fairness conservatives needed.
Wow. And through some unknown miracle back then we could tell the wildly sensationalist "newspapers" from the serious papers with partisan views. Kinda like the Internet today.
No such animal as objective journalists. Its not possible. The idea that its possible for objective reporting is a lie swallowed by the masses.
This is kind of on your subject.
Just got off my library website looking for a book on the new journalism of the 60’s and saw your post. My interest is the style of Joan Didion (The White Album and Slouching Towards Bethlehem).
Book I found under The New Journalism Revolution is “The Gang Who Wouldn’t Write Straight” by Marc Weingarten. Description read in part “Traditional just the facts reporting simply could not provide a neat and symmetrical order to the chaos of the 60’s”. Both the Didion essays “ordered” that chaos for me. The Weingarten book covers Didion, Wolfe, Thompson, Capote and Mailer among others.
I’ll let you know in a few weeks if it answers my questions.:)
“The cynicism of the trade needs to be abandoned, for the true patterns of the journalistic apprentice are not the slick persons who scoop the news, but the patient and fearless men of science who have labored to see what the world really is. “
I see no men of science in today’s journalist corps.
"Journalistic objectivity" has more to do with professionalism, accuracy, and standards of evidence than with the absence of a personal perspective on the news.
What I also notice is that Americas in the early 20th century weren't very ideologically divided, though Lippmann and others may have tried to make journalism more ideological.
Reporters started out on sports or crime and worked their way up to covering politics, foreign affairs, and the arts. A nose for news was more important than a political ideology or animus.
They probably disliked the rich, but they didn't have the politicized worldviews that today's journalists have, so something like even-handedness or factuality or disinterestedness wasn't considered a wildly impossible ideal.
It is possible, and laudable, to try to be objective. It is even acceptable to claim you are trying to be objective - if indeed you are actually doing that.But it is not possible to know that you are objective - and if you claim that you actually are objective, it is not even possible to actually try to be objective. That is the case because any serious attempt at objectivity must start from the assumption that where you stand actually might be influenced by where you sit. Thus, if you assume that you are objective, you actually are not even trying to actually be objective.
The fundamental thing which unites journalists, IMHO, is a desire for influence. This motivates journalists to despise “The man who is actually in the arena” and to promote the conceit that, pace Theodore Roosevelt, it is the critic who counts. This leads directly to the cynical idea that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that - somebody else made that happen.” That is the obvious nexus between the interest of journalism and the interest of socialist politicians.
I’m a CPA. My profession requires I be objective. I try to identify my preconceptions when analyzing. I know there are preconceptions that are so ingrained that I cannot recognize them and others that are there but I miss. I know some of my biases and blind spots but I cannot see them all.
"Objective journalism"
Like so many things, it sounds good in theory, but falls apart in reality.
My vote says its that "human factor" that gets involved and messes it up.
Thanks for the ping!
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