For four years, I have written about the alarming loss of neutrality and objectivity in journalism — a trend that is reflected by many polls showing that the majority of the public no longer trusts the media for fair and honest reporting. While I have regularly criticized President Donald Trump, I have also objected to unrelentingly biased reporting as well as embarrassingly soft coverage of former Vice President Joe Biden. Now, Stanford Communications Professor Emeritus Ted Glasser has publicly called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking “social justice.”
In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Glasser insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that the journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.” Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”
Dressing up bias as “advocating social justice,” does not remove the taint of yellow journalism. It is the same rationalization for shaping the news to fit your agenda and treating readers as subjects to be educated rather than informed.
While other professors in The Stanford Daily disagreed, Wesley Lowery, who has served as a national correspondent for the Washington Post, also rejects objectivity. In a tweet, Lowery declared “American view-from-nowhere, “objectivity”-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment…The old way must go. We need to rebuild our industry as one that operates from a place of moral clarity.”
These are major voices in media. Glasser is a Stanford Department of Communication professor emeritus and served as the director for Stanford’s Graduate Program in Journalism. He is also the former president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Glasser doubled down in an interview with Campus Reform, stating “My understanding of journalism, like my understanding of history, rests on the premise that there is no finally correct description of anything — only interpretations.” He added that “I’m not a big fan of the term ‘objectivity’ or ‘objective truth’ because it gets us talking about all the wrong things.”
That relativistic view, of course, would wipe away any semblance objective reporting. Indeed, he is rejecting the very notion of objectivity or any “correct description of anything.”
It is a liberating notion for writers like Glasser and Lowery. They can assume the mantle of social warriors and join whatever movement they prefer. They can then discard pesky notions of journalism as striving to offer unbiased accounts for the public to reach their own conclusions.
The alarming aspect of these views is that they are prevailing. It is now common to hear academics and reporters reject “both sideism” as a trap and even a form of racism. Even the publishing of opposing views is now considered dangerous as shown by the removal of New York Times editor James Bennet, who resigned in the recent controversy over an editorial by Sen. Tom Cotton. I supported Bennet’s decision to publish that editorial and denounced the cringing apology of the Times after a backlash. Yet, the same journalistic figures at the New York Times who pushed for his removal have continued to espouse unhinged and untrue conspiracy theories in the name of advocacy.
With the collapse of objectivity will come the collapse of journalism. While academics revel in their ability to dispense with limitations of neutrality, many of their newspapers and news organizations are declining with the free fall of credibility with the public. As a result, the media has hit a historic low, with less than half of the populace finding it credible. Some polls show that the only group deemed less trustworthy than Trump is the media. The Knight Foundation has found that three-fourths of the public believe the media is too biased; some 54 percent believe reporters regularly misrepresent facts, and 28 percent believe reporters make things up entirely.
Notably, as these journalists saw away of the branch upon which they are sitting, the impact may be more than the destruction of the media market. Few people want to be fed a diet of what Professor Glasser believes is morally fight as opposed to factually true. The problem is that this view will remove any real distinction between journalism and political science department; between reporters and social warriors. While they will continue to enjoy free speech protections, courts may become less inclined to support the protections afforded to the free press because there would be no discernible press as opposed to politics or propaganda.
Most importantly, what will be lost is one of the most important protections of liberty found in a free press. It has been the media that has triggered most reforms in our history from the Pentagon Papers to Watergate. Yet, this was only because the public trusted the media because of the very objectivity and neutrality values that Glasser, Lowery, and other now reject.
With leftist minions you have to substitute up for down, progress with regress, truth for lies, moral with immoral. If you want to be a journalist, put in the work, otherwise, don’t call yourself a journalist.
Activist or SJW journalism is purely opinion or editorial.
The media is rapidly becoming SJW activism, masquerading as “informing the public.” It’s propaganda.
Op-ed has its place, but the public requires some sort of public clearing house for factual, unbiased information. Just the facts, with the public trusted like adults to form their own opinion. Who. What. Where. When. Why. Full descriptions of perpetrators and victims. Fully fleshed out stories. One side given and a rebuttal.
We need many more news sites to come forth that are strictly straight news, without any opinion, roundtables, or editorials given, at all. Just the facts. There are plenty of opinion sources. What we need is more straight news. We need the seed of the next NYT, back when it fought to be unbiased.
Karen, the NYTs. WSJ. WaPo, AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg are all available to you and you are not forced to read their editorial pages. They all strive to remain factual in their reporting and that is their market strategy.
AP and Reuters and Bloomber and WSJ are not in the same class. NYT and Wapoo are propaganda and not only editorial but the way they pick and frame their “news”
AP Reuters Bloomberg and WSJ have their own value-premises too, but they DO function in the way you suggested Book by providing useful information to grow the market
Wapoo and NYT really are not too worried about market share or profits. The richest man in the world who owns Wapoo could lose its whole capitalization value every day for the next decade and not even notice. If Amazon sneezes one day in the market it probably sheds more than whatever the Wapoo is worth.
BTB – I highly recommend reading this legal blog, written by a highly acclaimed law professor named Jonathan Turley. He frequently discusses media bias, and the abandonment of journalistic integrity by the major news organizations, including the NYT.
This blog may be found at jonathanturley.org.
You should check it out.
These ideologues always say “there is no objective truth” and yet, simultaneously, that their interpretation of the world around them as lacking in social justice is correct. And they honestly have no clue that the latter claim cannot logically be separated from the former assertion. Or, those who do recognize the absurdity simply shout “logic is Eurocentric and part of the problem!” And they teach!
I disagree that skepticism of objectivity in reporting necessarily leads to the collapse of fairness and accuracy therein, although there is potentially a built-in extremism to the notion that one must always monitor. However, “objectivity vs. activism” is a false dichotomy peddled by those who benefit from equating objectivity with their own reportorial biases and interests, e.g. not calling torture by government perpetrators torture until they are legally in the clear, or lying lying until your disfavored public official tells lies.
Here is objectivity in a nutshell (from the NYT, which would claim that this headline is objective): https://www.scribd.com/document/475999569/Nyt-Headline
The best discussion of this issue that I’ve seen is the exchange of open letters on it between Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html)
Let’s think about this. The First Amendment was produced by men who had just gone through a revolution, a revolution in which “patriots” had been jailed by the British for printing anti-British pamphlets. They wanted a nation where citizens would be entirely free (except slaves, who were property). Government could not punish citizens for publishing material it does not like. “Objectivity” was not a consideration of freedom of the press.. For that matter, journalists have NEVER been objective. They’ve used their medium to promote their political opinion from day one. Jefferson used pamphlets in his battle with Hamilton and vice versa. At one point, large numbers of newspapers in this country were labeled “Democrat, Republican and Independent.” Some still bear those names. While this professor is an obvious leftist, he’s right. Political parties want power and journalists are their foot soldiers – until the shooting starts, then journalists disappear. If you want objectivity, ban political parties. That’s not going to happen because political parties control Congress and the legislatures.
Actually, to be really accurate, most of the Founders believed slavery should end, and thus the slaves would become free but, (a) not immediately because that would disrupt the economy of the new nation, which was weak, and (b) they were prepared, obviously, to sacrifice that value for the sake of keeping the Deep South as part of the nation so as to be better able to to withstand future European invasions.
Sorry so-called “professor” or journalism: This “social justice” cry has become cover for anarchists, mobsters, violent individuals, arsonists, looters, etc.
It’s also been par for the course for decades. It seems Prof Turley is way behind the trend.
This “objectivity is bad” stuff comes from post-modernism which has been orthodoxy since around the late 69s, in one variety or another
If you read the feed of garbage “apple news” will regurgitate, even to a knuckle dragger like me who doesnt want to read the dreck, it is clear that big newspapers and mass media news outlets have already abandoned objectivity en masse. In favor of framing issues to support their editorial bosses’ predetermined agendas
this is why we call it “fake news”
Mr. Kurtz– for network news, I put the beginning of its demise in the 1970s when Roone Arledge was given the reins for ABC News, in addition to ABC Sports. After that, the man purpose of television news morphed into entertainment,splashy graphics and all. Today, anyone who watches any of the networks for news is foolish and apparently does not mind being played for a fool. It’s almost as sad as seeing someone take CNN seriously and realizing that they have a right to vote.
CNN was a great premise and I really liked it for the first decade. Now it’s a mess.
CNN is a little like having Goebbels run an American network– basically seditious.
JT is encouraging “objectivity is bad” while pretending otherwise. He’s a fool or a propagandist. Take your pic.
JT is a liberal who adheres to Enlightenment notions about objectivity.
What nobody has mentioned is that Hegel and his “dialectics” helped show how the particulars of current events can form competing narratives that shape and form interpretation of empirical events in history. German philosophy yes including Marx and Heidegger alike build to one degree or another on Hegel’s work.
American liberals of both the classic liberal moderate type and the libertarian type often seem to have never heard of Hegel. I won’t put them down either for being fools nor propagandists per se, but, out of line with the strategic thinking which pervades all successful politics today.
What patriots may not yet grasp in America– trust me they get it in Europe, all across the spectrum– but what men may still may not fully grasp here, is how the post-modernist viewpoint that value-norms pervade most everything including news reporting, is actually an opportunity for cooperation and successful containment and advances against the enemies of our nation.
in his own way, Trump is post-modernist. For starters, he is a habitual fibber. I do not say liar because most of his fibs are matters of overstatement or overgeneralization or immaterial errors. But he is blissfully unconcerned about factual accuracy and his detractors often fixiate on his numerous factual errors and overstatements as proof he is a liar. No he is just a fibber and one who overuses hyperbole to make his points. Not a liar.
moreover I do not call him a liar because even in his fibbing he reveals deeper truths, through his sincerity. Authenticity is one of the values much explored by Martin Heidegger, whose work is integral to the “post modernist” Left– though Heiddegger was in his own person, unquestionably a man of the right. Trump’s voice has authenticity that resonates with the people.
Arguably Biden has a more authentic tone than the other Democrats he bested in the primary too. Consider how cruelly Kamala his VP choice mocked and denounced him in the primary. Joe mostly just grinned and shrugged it off. Because he knew that her strident tone and nitpicking was tone deaf in the ears of the average Democratic party voter.
One might consider in an interesting exercise, various ways in which Trump and Biden are similar. But, don’t wait for the news media to perform the analysis. They have a job to do and it’s “hate Trump” 24/7 so the obvious similarities will all go unsaid.
Anyone else having trouble posting today? Whenever this happens one can’t avoid wondering if it’s censorship or a legitimate technical issue.
It is impossible to make a judgment, including a moral judgment, unless all the ascertainable facts of a particular case are known.
That is true in the courtroom, it is true for historians, and it is true for journalists. Who would trust a judge who bent the law to suit his purpose?
Who would trust a historian who only cited that evidence which supported his argument and ignored that evidence which contradicted it?
Who would trust a journalist who substitutes moral lessons for accurate reporting?
Those who call for an end to objectivity are advocating a subjective approach to reality. But reality is complex; it has many more than two sides, and a good reporter, a good historian, and a good judge will seek to understand and disentangle the complex and often contradictory realities with which they are dealing before rendering even a provisional judgment, much less a binding one.
Without detachment and objectivity, we are left with prejudice and subjectivity, making rational discourse impossible because we have no common intellectual ground on which to meet one another. We have only arbitrary positions and circular argumentts based on the prejudices of those advocating them.
Well at least he admits that news is fiction not fact.
We have four difficulties:
1. The screen the media uses to define which stories are worth pursuing and which are not serves the interests of the DNC press office and sorosphere outfits.
2. They crop the factual material to fit their narrative
3. They have no compunction about making things up.
4. Their values stink.
The solution is simple: hand them Nansen passports and tell them that if they ever return to this country, they’ll be imprisoned for a long time.
I agree with 1-4 and the solution was amusing
but the solution is actually flour fold
a- revisit and fix the bad legal precedent of NYT v Sullivan
b- break up the big media conglomerates starting with Apple and Google and some obvious others, using antitrust law
c- require them to treat their public forum areas like utilities and stop cherry picking user content or lose their privileges under Section 230 of CDA
d- prosecute the financiers of BLM and ANTIFA as jointly liable racketeers under the RICO laws and confiscate their assets and resell them at public auction to help defray the cost of fixing all the riot torn areas wrecked by the BLM-ANTIFA rioters and protection-racketeers
that would be a really good START
Doofus, your mistake is watching screens for news.
Just to be clear: some claims are T/F (i.e., they are factual), and other claims are not T/F (e.g., they are values), and the practice of journalism necessarily involves a combination of these. As a simple example, if you say “X is important,” that’s an opinion, not a T/F claim. Journalists don’t pick stories at random. They write about things that they think are important, interesting, … It is absolutely impossible for a journalist to be wholly objective in his/her reporting (since that reporting necessarily involves judgments about what’s important to include, what’s fair, what’s clear vs. needs to be explicated, what’s moral, etc.), and it’s counterproductive for anyone to pretend that a journalist can be wholly objective. That said, it’s also important for journalists to work hard to avoid false or misleading claims when it comes to claims that *are* T/F.
And it’s ironic that Turley — whose columns are based on his own values and who regularly makes erroneous statements about T/F claims — is calling for more objectivity. Physician, heal thyself.
Commit, Turley doesn’t present himself as being a journalist, let alone an objective and unbiased one.
While it’s true that there’s always judgment made in choosing stories to cover, this rationale is no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The only reason you seem so eager to do this is you’re comfortable in the crowded liberal stew in which you sit.
On the contrary, DV, I explicitly said: it’s also important for journalists to work hard to avoid false or misleading claims when it comes to claims that *are* T/F.
So don’t pretend that I’m “eager” “to throw out the baby with the bathwater.”
“Journalists don’t pick stories at random”
EXACTLY. they write on the topics their editorial bosses tell them to. If they don’t then they are wasting time on copy that ends on the cutting floor.
So they DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD
Who employs editors above them? Corporate management, which answers in the end, to centi-billionaires like Jeff Bezos, the richest man in history, who owns Washington Post and Foreign Affairs and hates Trump with a passion.
So we get a bunch of “values” embedded in the tons of copy thrown our way which reflect Jeff Bezos’ personal “values” which are not MINE
OH BUT YOU ARE EQUALS! EQUALITY! FREEDOM OF SPEECH!
which is a smokescreen. those with ownership of mass media assets are not EQUAL to our voices, they are EXPONENTIALLY LOUDER AND THUS MORE EFFECTIVE
let me explain this. My free speech is not EQUAL to Jeff Bezos. I am stuck jibber jabbering on this little web page and he commands billions of dollars worth of media assets.
Jeff Bezos voice is SUPERIOR to mine. All all ours combined.
First Amendment conceals the inequality– of money.
And this is why Jeff wants to focus people on racial discord, because it conceals his titanic stature of money
I am not saying do away with the First amendment. but I will consider it.
For now I am just saying BREAK UP THE OLIGARCH’S MASS MEDIA CONGLOMERATES STARTING WITH APPLE AND GOOGLE and keep moving after them– with ANTITRUST tools.
oh yes apple is very much in the news business too. figure it out.
Kurtz, Bezos is a libertarian and he does not involve himself in WaPo editorial or journalistic reporting, or it would sound like John Say. Your continued conspiratorial explanation of the press is a patently obvious attempt to besmirch factual reporting on Trump. If you cared a wet twinkie for the truth and fairness, you could never support him.
Book of course the richest man in the world is a libertarian. it suits his own interests to supremely divide every possible adversary into atomistic particles never able to counteract his power.
Libertarians are or at least they used to be almost ALWAYS free traders. Milton Friedman influence, also the Austrian school of economics. That some of them like Trump now shows how badly the free trade dogmas have collapsed in the face of the massive unfairness of pitting American workers and industry against the union-free slave-labor enterprises of the PRC.
but guys like Bezos who profit greatly off of the free trade with China, via imports, like Bezos or the Wal Mart scions, HATE TRUMP because he has adversely affected their ability to profit off the PRC slave labor force. This is why for example Walmart give millions to BLM. They see it as a chance to destabilize the country enough to get rid of Trump.,
Your bete noire Kroch bros who have tossed some millions at liberterian outfits have a shared free trade agenda. Far as I know, they have not given to BLM but they’re out there seeding these other hate-Trump projects like the Lincnt project. Or so I suspect.
Trump is the champion of fair trade over free trade and nationalism over globalism. For libertarians who still see a place for the nation in international law, sometimes they will support Trump. For the libertarians in the import business who value their own individualistic profits over our national industrial community including both management and labor, they often hate Trump. They are “comprador-capitalists” to use the world the PRC used to use for their own sector of traitorous businessmen who put their own profiteering with foreigners over the national interest.,
The elements of liberterianism I retain are actually just common sense stuff like legalizing weed., We should have a national law legalzing weed. Same for legalizing sex work between consenting adults. Tulsi Gabbard Democrat Congresswoman from Hawaii has helped advance bills on both fronts.
btw. Trump is on the record for supporting weed legalization. Thank Roger Stone for that, he is a weed legalizer too.
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/trump-says-he-supports-senate-marijuana-legislation/
not being a doctrinaire libertarian, I also support local restrictions on zoning weed and sex businesses and believe they should remain under reasonable medical supervision for health and safety. now these crazed liberterian fanatics used to tell me I was wrong about that because because whatever. in the end things like weed and sex work are however not key issues for picking between Trump and Biden.
Interestingly there are signs that Biden is veering toward’s Trump’s fair trade policy where China is concerned. Imitation a form of flattery. Good for Biden if that is true. Good for us all.
As I pointed out to you previously, plenty of those on the left agree re: breaking up those companies, and it was even part of Warren’s platform as a candidate: https://medium.com/@teamwarren/heres-how-we-can-break-up-big-tech-9ad9e0da324c
A very good policy recommendation from Liz Warren and thanks again for mentioning it CTHD. This is exactly what Barr was suggesting he would do and so far appears to have NOT delivered.
The whole thing is getting off to as very slow start but maybe it will pick up momentum after the election, I suspect it will regardless of who wins. Because, the state is being dwarfed by the power of Silicon Valley to manipulate and restrict and edit content available to the public . If ever “freedoms” of the press have been abused it is now
Because of our First Amendment, a “truth ministry” approach is not feasible. Antitrust however provides the tools that can help work things out in a better way
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/26/silicon-valley-anti-trust-1619256
“CTHD– “some claims are T/F (i.e., they are factual)”
***
I think you fooled yourself playing with your toys. If by T/F you mean True or False then it is False to say: ” (i.e., they are factual)”. The claim made would be Factual aut Not Factual but not both and certainly not always ‘factual’.
You introduced ambiguity into a mostly unambiguous statement. I think you were trying to say that the claim was falsifiable but even that would be wrong because opinions are also falsifiable and may true or false. Even your ‘value statement’, “X is important” can be a true or false statement if it is in the form of something like “It is important to have enough gas in your plane to reach your destination”.
I wondered about the strange rigidity in some of your arguments. Perhaps overworking ordinary language has something to do with it.
I should have said “e.g.” rather than “i.e.” False statements clearly aren’t factual. Way to miss the point, though, Young: some claims are T/F, and other claims are not T/F. If a statement is falsifiable, it isn’t an opinion.
Are you, too, an OCD secretary to be picking at the wording?
At least Ted Glasser is honest. Facts and the Democratic Party Narrative are not friends.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here–not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72
If JT practiced anything like objective juornalism, he’d have standing to write this column, but he doesn’t and he doesn’t.
He regularly cites public opinion on the “media” without showing examples of the supposed unfair biased coverage the Liar-in Chief receives. As noted in a Harvard study of the 2016 election, Trump received roughly equal negative coverage as Hillary and was given mcu free and neutral coverage in the GOP primary. Since his election, the fact that the press has not more regularly called out his bold facing lying and indecent behavior is proof of their trying to maintain dignity while he does his best to erase it.
JT’s premise is wrong – public opinion does not equal factual analysis – and he is a willing purveyor of propaganda,
We rate this column complete and utter BS.
BtB:
You have gotten really tedious; I forgot how fuzzy your thinking is until I made the mistake of reading your posting today.
Another reminder to ignore TDS people.
“If JT practiced anything like objective juornalism, he’d have standing to write this column, but he doesn’t and he doesn’t.”
Nice ad hominem. Plus you’re conflating reporting and editorializing.
JT repeats falsehoods here regularly while targeting two cable news networks without ever mentioning the 3rd, which has the same marketing strategy of selling to the committed. He is guilty of both reporting and editorial deception. I addressed his confusion of public opinion on reporting – which he strives to encourage and which benefits the Liar in Chief – with the facts of reporting.
Fellow claims to be a “Communications” professor; he has finally come out of the closet as a propaganda professor.
And good for him; the truth shall set him free.
But parents footing a huge university bill should also know what they are paying for.
And so should American taxpayers, who should not pay for indoctrination when they think that they are paying for education.
Sure, Glasser and Lowery are free to hold their views, but I think discussing them elevates them. I think it is best to ignore them.
JT, do you now see where the ruination of American culture has gotten its genesis. Our education industry has been hijacked by those who despise our core values and are working insidiously to destroy us from within. Please stop apologizing for what has become a pernicious infestation into the heart of this nation.