"Objective" Journalism

Theodore Dawes at The American Thinker: Why the News Makes You Angry.

The news is not objective. It can't possibly be objective. It gets filtered through people, and journalists and their temper tantrums notwithstanding, there is no magic formula that yields truly objective reporting.

"...when a New York Times reporter reads the story, he sees objective truth, because he shares his colleague's underlying assumptions. The assumptions disappear, as if by magic, because it is only in conflict that you can recognize someone else's bias."

And so...

Okay, we've now established that journalistic objectivity is 1) a new idea, 2) a bad idea, and 3) impossible.

So what do we do next?

We should stop pretending that objectivity is possible, and stop asking our news providers to practice it.

That might sound shocking, but it may be easier to accept if we properly define our current system. We're indebted to the remarkable Marvin Olasky, who has provided exactly that. Olasky, a former journalism professor at the University of Texas and now editor of World magazine, says journalists today engage in "disguised subjectivity." In reality, it isn't objectivity at all, or even the effort to come close. Instead, Olasky says, it involves the practice of "strategic ritual," which he describes as "the process of selecting sources and structuring quotes so that a reporter may advance his view in the news story while claiming objectivity."

Sound familiar?

In his comment, Olasky provides the key reason why we need to abandon all notions of objectivity. It is in fact the perfect mechanism for slipping ideas and opinions into news stories while leaving readers unaware they are being propagandized. Under cover of "objectivity," the nation's reporters and editors are providing us not with the truth, but rather with the facts, the quotes, and the views they want us to hear, read, and believe.

Of course, if you are unaware you are being propagandized -- if you actually believe you're reading the objective truth -- then you are most likely to believe it.

It's the old primrose path, don't you know. And that's why the news makes you angry.