Jazmine Hughes, a writer for the New York Times Magazine, resigned this week after a conflict with her editors over signing of an anti-Israeli letter. New York Times Magazine Editor Jake Silverstein said Hughes violated the company’s policy on public protest. The incident exposes the inherent conflicts — and hypocrisy — in the shift away from neutrality in reporting in media companies and graduate programs.
I have long been a critic of what I called “advocacy journalism” as it began to emerge in journalism schools. These schools encourage students to use their “lived expertise” and to “leave[] neutrality behind.” Instead, of neutrality, they are pushing “solidarity [as] ‘a commitment to social justice that translates into action.’”
For example, we previously discussed the release of the results of interviews with over 75 media leaders by former executive editor for The Washington Post Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward. They concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and even harmful. Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor-in-chief at the San Francisco Chronicle said it plainly: “Objectivity has got to go.”
Saying that “Objectivity has got to go” is, of course, liberating. You can dispense with the necessities of neutrality and balance. You can cater to your “base” like columnists and opinion writers. Sharing the opposing view is now dismissed as “bothsidesism.” Done. No need to give credence to opposing views. It is a familiar reality for those of us in higher education, which has been increasingly intolerant of opposing or dissenting views.
Downie recounted how news leaders today
“believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading “bothsidesism” in covering stories about race, the treatment of women, LGBTQ+ rights, income inequality, climate change and many other subjects. And, in today’s diversifying newsrooms, they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”
There was a time when all journalists shared a common “identity” as professionals who were able to separate their own bias and values from the reporting of the news.
Now, objectivity is virtually synonymous with prejudice. Kathleen Carroll, former executive editor at the Associated Press declared “It’s objective by whose standard? … That standard seems to be White, educated, and fairly wealthy.”
In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Stanford journalism professor, Ted 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 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.”
Lauren Wolfe, the fired freelance editor for the New York Times, has not only gone public to defend her pro-Biden tweet but published a piece titled “I’m a Biased Journalist and I’m Okay With That.”
Former New York Times writer (and now Howard University Journalism Professor) Nikole Hannah-Jones is a leading voice for advocacy journalism.
Indeed, Hannah-Jones has declared “all journalism is activism.”
At the same time, outlets like National Public Radio have abandoned the rule that journalists should not engage in public protests.
NPR declared that it would allow employees to participate in political protests when the editors believe the causes advance the “freedom and dignity of human beings.” So it remained up to the editors if a reporter could join a pro-life protest (unlikely) or a pro-gun control protest (very likely).
Hughes represents this new generation of reporters that have been told for years to leave neutrality behind on a newspaper that fired editors for publishing an opinion piece by a conservative senator.
Siverstein stated “while I respect that she has strong convictions, this was a clear violation of The Times’s policy on public protest. This policy, which I fully support, is an important part of our commitment to independence.”
Hughes signed a letter dated Oct. 26 titled “Writers Against the War on Gaza,” that declared “Israel’s war against Gaza is an attempt to conduct genocide against the Palestinian people.”
The letter specifically criticized the New York Times for an editorial supporting Israel and criticized “establishment media outlets” who call the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas “unprovoked.”
The letter stated “We cannot write a free Palestine into existence, but together we must do all we possibly can to reject narratives that soothe Western complicity in ethnic cleansing.”
I can understand why writers like Hughes are confused. Media outlets like NPR will allow them to protest if the editors agree with their causes while NY Times pledges that it will not publish the views of senators on protests while publishing foreign figures accused of unspeakable acts against protesters or academics who have said that they are fine with killing conservatives.
Of course, none of this is sustainable for the industry.
What is most striking about this universal shift toward advocacy journalism (including at journalism schools) is that there is no evidence that it is a sustainable approach for the media as an industry. While outfits like NPR allow reporters to actually participate in protests and the New York Times sheds conservative opinions, the new polling shows a sharp and worrisome division in trust in the media. Not surprisingly, given the heavy slant of American media, Democrats are largely happy with and trusting of the media. Conversely, Republicans and independents are not. The question is whether the mainstream media can survive and flourish by writing off over half of the country.
A 2021 study from the non-partisan Pew Research Center showed a massive decline in trust among Republicans. Five years ago, 70 percent of Republicans said they had at least some trust in national news organizations. In 2021, that trust was down to just 35 percent. Conversely, and not surprisingly, 78 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying they have “a lot” or “some” trust in the media. When you just ask liberal Democrats, it jumps to 83 percent.
This latest polling shows that the problem is only getting more acute for the media.
Yet, instead of denouncing the shift to advocacy journalism, media outlets are seeking to simply maintain a selective, NPR-like line of what advocacy is to be allowed, even fostered.
Notably, hundreds of journalists signed this letter but Hughes is the only one known to have left her position with their media company. We previously discussed how hundreds of writers and editors signed a petition to censor Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett (citing their publishing company affiliations).
The problem for the NY Times is not severing ties with Hughes over her public advocacy, but the paper’s embrace of such advocacy in coverage, including its recent controversy over spreading false claims that Israel clearly bombed a hospital causing hundreds of deaths in Gaza.
If editors are actively telling young reporters to “leave neutrality behind,” they can hardly be surprised when writers like Hughes sign these letters.
AP has turned into the worst offender. NBC is horrible, CNN is a joke, the LA Times, Boston Globe, NY Times, CBS, ABC and a few others are a disaster, but AP is a source for all of our little local papers and they are supposed to be the arbiter of news distribution. I moved from a very blue area with a huge nationally recognized local paper to a pretty red area with a small local paper and even though the small local paper covers a pretty red area the “journalism” is FAR, FAR left and the national leads are covered by the FARA, FAR left AP and the USA Today.
Oddly enough they wonder why they are suffering financially????
There is nothing that gets my blood pressure up like dishonest, partisan MAINSTREAM journalism supporting one-sided political ideology. And yet, the bigger, more pressing danger is not the WaPo, NYT, etc.— It is the TELEVISED “news” (think NBC, ABC), as well as programs like NBC’s Meet the Press, and ABC’s This Week. — Not only for those Americans who are busy all week but catch up on the “news” on weekend television, -but also for those moms and pops (many being immigrants) who cannot read English, but get their “news” from televised MSM (NBC and ABC). The subliminal, as well as patent, propaganda is stunning.
I really don’t care what slanted news come(s) out of CNN or FOX, or whether my friends are anti-Trump or pro-Trump (my close friends are a healthy mix of both. We recently rented a cabin, nine of us, several good cathartic political discussions around campfires, intertwined with uncontrolled fun playing Laser Gun warfare in the woods, UNO and Euchre card games, and bicycling, etc.) We need more of that unfettered ability to express our opinions and consider others’.
But MAINSTREAM reporting and programming is a far cry from unbiased, objective, fair, non-partisan, and “just the facts, ALL the facts, ma’am.”
ABC’s George Stephanopoulis (you remember, the one who forgot to disclose his $50,000+ donation to the Clinton campaign) constantly interrupts and challenges Republican guests while giving carte blanche air time to responses from Democratic guests. This morning, BRAVO to Rep. Steve Scalise, who was challenged FIVE TIMES by George, but did not back down.
The political discussion panels on these programs, speciously pretending to be bi-partisan, always choose anti-Trump Republicans (today it’s Sara Fagen),– let alone that the panels are generally 4 to 1 Democrats with one token Republican. Same thing with repeat “Republican” guests on the programs (the likes of Chris Christie, Mitt Romney, etc.). ABC’s Jonathan Karl is another partisan who prostitutes the news into political gamesmanship.
Although I was way too young and hardly remember them, I do not recall getting a feeling that NBC’s Tim Russert or ABC’s [whoever-preceded stephanopoulos] were sooooo partisan in the way they asked questions, elicited answers, or respectfully treated their guests. Same thing with the old program on Public Television, the McLaughlin Group, which engaged in healthy but polite debate. We need more of that.
I really wish more Americans could see through these propagandistic attempts to influence voters and opinions.
It doesn’t just get your blood pressure up, it gets your fingers moving! But I stayed with you. I too consider those responsible for the deliberate misrepresentations of news content, to be the worse traitors of all. Guardians of the First Amendment? Spit!!! They’re vermin excrement. and Yes, I agree that these yahoos who call themselves journalists, these days, are nothing more than propagandists. Thus, I never waste time watching them. I believe there has been woefully few real investigative journalists, ever. The good ones probably got rubbed out before they became famous. and Yes, I have often lamented that there seems to be a sizable part of the populace who are more or less blind to the realities of just how bad things are. Soon, they’re going to have an extraordinary regaining of sight, and it won’t be all fun and games. I have great faith in God but I have increasingly less in the United States. I think what we are witnessing is the death throes of this former constitutional republic. Just how protracted, painful and excruciating the death will be remains to be seen.
Lin,
Well said.
Weekend at the cabin sounds like a good time to me! Especially the conversation, card games!
Hope good food and drink were in abundance too!
lin – I’m jealous of your weekend at the cabin. Perhaps Auntie Em and I could join you some time?
Yours,
Uncle Henry
Jonathan: Your continued attacks on “advocacy journalism” by the NY Times and others has exposed your contradictory positions on the subject. When you joined Fox news as a “legal analyst” you gave up “neutrality”. Fox is the poster child for “advocacy journalism”. It is a propaganda outlet for the far right. Here is an example of how you have become a willing participant in Fox’s jettisoning of journalistic ethics and standards.
Yesterday you were on Laura Ingraham’s show–who spews out conspiracy theories every day. In the interview you claimed Judge Chutkan’s reimposed gag order on DJT is “unconstitutional”. This is an echo of DJT’s lawyer’s position in their appeal to the DC Court of Appeals–claiming the gag order violates their client’s 1st Amendment right as a candidate for office. You told Ingraham: “What is the purpose of this gag order? If you’re silencing not only one of these leading candidates in the election where this is being debated but he [DJT] can’t even criticize his former opponent Michael Pence or the witnesses bringing evidence against him that I think is problematic…”.
What you conveniently ignore is that Chutkan’s gag order does not prevent DJT from criticizing Pence or any other candidate–nor does it prevent him from making general criticisms of the the judge or the prosecutors. What the order says is that DJT can’t threaten or attack potential witnesses–like he did with Mark Meadows, who is a probable witness in the DC trial. Attacking witnesses by name is witness tampering! That’s not “problematic”.
You should know gag orders have been upheld by the courts. They only become unconstitutional when they exceed the minimum necessary to ensure a fair trial. In one of the seminal cases, Nebraska Press Ass’n v Stuart (1976), the SC applied a 3 pronged “strict scrutiny” test and found the gag order was constitutional. So, based on SC precedent, how is the DC Court of Appeals likely to rule in DJT’s appeal of Judge Chutkan’s gag order? I think you will be disappointed because the 3-judge panel will probably find the gag order was not an abuse of discretion by Judge Chutkan.
“Advocacy” for DJT on Fox News is not exactly the kind of “neutrality” one would expect from a constitutional scholar. You expect that from the NT times and others but don’t apply the same standard to yourself. Why is that? Probably because you are a paid “advocate” for the kind of neutral-free reporting we see on Fox every day!
Dennis, save your time because nobody reads your garbage.
Dennis – Do you really believe any of these cases against Trump are legitimate? Really?
You applaud this brazen in-your-face corruption of our justice system and courts….
and you clap for this outrageous interference in our elections….
as if you are delighted to be living in Biden’s lawless banana republic.
The DOJ is lawless and corrupt. AG Garland is corrupt. The FBI is corrupt and operating like the Stasi. State AGs are lawless and corrupt. Assistant AGs are corrupt. DAs are corrupt. The courts are captured and corrupt. Judges are bought off and corrupt. The media is corrupt. The borders are open. The Democrat Party has gone full communist. Politicians are bought off. Elections are rigged. Blackmail is the currency in Washington DC. This is SO much bigger than Trump. Wake up doofus.
There was peace and prosperity in the world under Trump.
We did not have all this lawlessness in our cities and chaos in the world under Trump.
Those responsible for CAUSING the chaos and lawlessness we had in this country during Trump’s four years were: the corrupt Democrat pols, the corrupt RINOs, the Democrat/media propagandists and liars, the Democrats’ shock troops and brown shirts, Hollywood propagandists and big mouths, the corrupt establishment, the deep staters, the MIC, the intel community –and all of their “6 ways from Sunday” to take Trump out. They are *still* trying. Why?
Ya gotta ask: Why are they all fighting so hard to stop one man from having four more years?
Ya gotta ask: If Biden got 81 million votes, why fight so hard to stop Trump? It should be another easy landslide win for Biden, right?
Ya gotta ask: Why is “criminally indicted” Trump still beating Biden in polls from key states all across the country?
Because things were GOOD in this country – and in the world – under Trump.
We The People are not as stupid as THEY wish we were.
You need yet another example of how deadly corrupt DOJ is? Here ya go —>
Sharyl Attkisson 🕵️♂️💼🥋
@SharylAttkisson
I wish I were making this up. In my ongoing lawsuit over the govt. spying on my computers, I submitted this document to the court. It proved that one agent who admitted spying on me (and many others) had, indeed, worked as an informant for US Atty. Rod Rosenstein, as he’d claimed.
About a week later, the informant was reported dead. Which of course means he can’t provide more details of the operation. And the historic clerk’s default I received against him in my lawsuit– the first known such decision in a case of govt. spying on a journalist–pretty much will go nowhere.
Nov 5, 2023
He’s talking to YOU, Dennis:
“Trump Derangement Syndrome is a top 5 psychiatric illness in our country. Add it to the DSM 6. Many Democrats & a good number of Republicans suffer from it. It’s sad.” @VivekGRamaswamy
“Fox is the poster child for “advocacy journalism”. It is a propaganda outlet for the far right.”
This is all of the advocacy diarrhea we need from Denny to stop reading todays outburst. He sounds suspiciously like that idiot Gigi, referring to the nations #1 news network, with more viewers than msnbc and cnn combined, as “far right”. These numbers, despite the fact that Fox lost about 20% due to people like Ralph, bailing because Fox DOESN’T lick Trumps boots.
The populist movement is mainstream right these days, but Denny and Gigi are afraid of it, so they try to denigrate it with labels like “far” and “alt”.
Oh well, just more useless drivel from the one who never disappoints in that regard.
This isn’t going to change unless we get dems out of power for a meaningful length of time and address what has happened to education, particularly its expectations of students. It’s only going to worsen until intractable.
It’s great thing that we notice, but there’s not much we can do in a system where the dem party is a regime intent on the destruction of any and all opposition and cares nothing for the rule of law. We are getting very close to that point, it is 100% the fault of the leftist globalists and their turn coats in other parties, and it isn’t going to be pretty. Protect the first and second at all costs.
“Notably, hundreds of journalists signed this letter . . .”
Your culture is doomed when its intellectuals and journalists evade the barbaric ideology of those they support.
Which barbarism includes: Morality police who punish Gazan women riding motorcycles and *female* journalists who dress “inappropriately.” A government that treats individuals as fodder for the cause. An ideology that rationalizes the butchering of 1,400 Israeli citizens.
More fundamentally, they are supporting (yet another) genocidal, terrorist-wielding dictatorship. Because, you know, there are just not enough of them in the Middle East.
Prof. Turley concentrates overly on “advocacy”and not enough on “hypocrisy.” Advocacy journalism is a misnomer. Journalists are being encouraged to drop the pretense of fairness in order to support the establishment of the Democratic Party. If they stray from that position, which they are supposed to figure out for themselves, they will be ruined. Jazmine Hughes criticized Israel. The actual, but unstated position, of the Democratic establishment is to support Israel against the Arab states, i.e., zionism. There are many other examples, e.g. the firing of Katie Halper by The Hill when she defended use of the phrase “apartheid” in relation to Israel. https://therealnews.com/katie-halper-the-hill-tv-fired-me-for-defending-critics-of-israel Another example is the way Felica Sonmez was treated by the WP when, after Kobe Bryant died, she tweeted about his rape prosecution. She was fired by Marty Barron. (“Democracy lives in darkness.”) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/business/media/felicia-sonmez-kobe-bryant-tweet.html She had failed to realize that the fawning coverage of Bryant meant that the D P establishment wanted to treat Bryant as an unblemished hero for political purposes. In fairness to their employees, the NYT, WP, NPR and others, should make a website available to their employees to let them know what subjects are off-limits.
We have covered this topic, at length and over many decadea. Why get so incensed now? Until we clean out the permicious cesspool of militancy existing within academia and within boardrooms filled with the product of said academicians, nothing will change and we will continue to whine like impotent old men while nothing changes and our society dies. If anyone, either personally or through taxpayer funds, continues to enable academia they need not complain.
Like Konstantin Kisin said recently, the legacy media is dying, and it can’t be saved or reformed. The only solution is to build better media to take their place.
The danger is the amount of damage it does in its death spiral. Quite a lot, evidently.
Anonymous says progress cannot be stopped. Well that depends on what you call progress. In the 1920’s and 1930’s Facism was all the rage with Spain the first real battlefield although Italy and Germany had already fallen under their control. Fascism also had it’s sizable number of adherents in France, Britain, Norway, the US, as well as allies in Bulgaria and Romania and co belligerents in Finland (although in Truth Finland was looking for anyone to help them fight the Russian Bear). Japan had fallen from a constitutional monarchy with a functioning parliament into a Fascist military state. It took a world war to turn it all back.
The advocacy journalism of the present day has already spawned competitors that slowly grab more and more eyeballs on the internet and talk radio remains a conservative bastion.
Also we see places like Disney (supposedly not journalists) who act just like advocacy journalists and is now in a near death spiral. Target and Budweiser are suffering the same for their advocacy activities and multiple small victories are turning back the trans movement (which had only advocacy and medical entrepreneurial money lust, and minimal science to support it).
I’m encouraged by the parents and students at schools and school board meetings who have changed the whole game. So much now that they are feared and considered terrorists.
The pendulum of human experience swings back and forth. The greater you swing the pendulum to your side, the greater will be it’s swing the to the other side. It’s just a cautionary tale that no side ever has all the answers and never forget it.
Correct, but these swings are very painful, sometimes deadly. It is better to understand and address the trend to make the amplitude smaller. We better act now, until this is a civil war.
jazmine hughes now understands what it means to be a useful idiot and what becomes of them.
idiom:
You Can’t See the forest or the Trees,
You can’t see things for how they really are,
You can’t see the whole situation clearly because you’re looking too closely at small details,
If you can’t see the forest for the trees, you are too focused on small details or parts and so you are missing something more important; you fail to understand,
If you can’t see the forest for the trees, you can’t see the whole situation clearly because you’re looking too closely at small details, or because you’re too closely involved,
Not see the forest for the trees: to not understand or appreciate a larger situation, problem, etc., because one is considering only a few parts of it,
See the forest for the trees, …
Acknowledge:
“monolithic point of view”
A monolithic culture is one in which there is little cultural diversity or variation within a society. In a monolithic culture, most people share the same values, beliefs, customs, and practices. This can lead to a homogeneity of thought and behavior within the culture.
Conclusion (-a- conclusion is)
The “Culture” of Advocacy Journalist does not see themselves as being behind or in a ‘monolithic point of view’. Wherefore, not only can They not see the Forest for the Trees, they can not see Themselves. One form could be considered “Syllogistic News”, another could be outright “Bias News”, and the Blind-Dismissal of the countervailing points of a Multi Cultural Society.
Thus, Blind to their own hypocrisy, and the hypocrisies of the Monolith.
E pluribus Unum | “Out of many, one”
Res ipsa loquitur | The thing speaks for itself
I remember reading abou the USSR, Mao’s China, 1930’s Germany and Italy operated…now I get to SEE the SAME fascism…right here in the US. Is there one ACTUAL republican in the operations of NYT and WAPO?
LOL….The NYT is a Fascist Democrat “protest”
I read the times for 30 years…then stopped when I realized they were LYING for the benefit of democrats about time of Bush.
Have they apologized to Trump for the 1000’s of lies they published?
Though I am more worried about the FBI, DOJ, CDC, SEC, IRS, etc who cover up CRIMES of Democrats and JAIL republicans…for being republican.
Time to cut 50% of federal spending and move 75% of government OUT OF DC
When a journalist allows a political cause to trump objectivity and truth (“by any means necessary”) he/she is simply adopting the classic destructive adage… “the end justifies the means”.
As we can sadly see, the result is to normalize Jew hatred.
that is the least of the country’s probelm. How about Trump being indicted 100’s times or 1200 January 6th protestors being jailed.
Apply Occam’s razor to the statement “Objectivity has got to go”. What you get is an obvious explanation: a dumbing down of journalism students and, ultimately, the media via a poor education system that is based on laziness.
It takes exactly zero effort to teach students that likely already have weak educational backgrounds (if standardized testing score give ANY indication) not to be objective as that is the natural state from preadolescence. It also takes considerably less effort on the part of editors if they do not have to monitor accuracy and bias on the part of their ‘reporters’ and media figures. And we seriously wonder why “professors’ and “editors” promote such a view? Heck, you get prestige and big bucks for doing ‘nothing’ while promoting a ‘nothing’ approach. It is the ultimate in laissez-faire education. Or, more accurately, lazy-faire education.
I guess since it was a social justice mostly peaceful demonstration at the White House last night there will be no arrests. Pictures of the demonstrators leaves one to wonder our ability as a country to survive. These same demonstrators have no issue with Ukrainians being slaughtered. Should be demonstrating for a ceasefire there and a negotiated peace treaty.
Objective reporting vanished a long time ago, but the tenure of President Trump put the final nail in the coffin and buried it 60 feet underground. The MSM decided to pull all semblance of objectivity and go hard left because of their hate for Trump. They have now gotten themselves in a box, if they don’t cater to their leftist base (~ 35% of the population), they will lose subscribers. Any claims of objectivity by the MSM today are an absolute joke. They did it to themselves and the majority of the citizens are confident in their assessment that the MSM is merely a propaganda arm of the Democrat party.
Amazing how all of these new-age Cafe Communists can embrace far left wokism for the “greater good” while they drive their BMW i7’s to work. Funny how that works isn’t it Jonathan ?
I’m okay with this development for opinion-writing such as editorials, blogs, podcasts, newsletters, etc. Knowing the author’s biases before I hear their opinions helps me frame what I hear.
I’m also even okay with this development for news reporting — but only because I don’t particularly care that these news organizations are dying. If I cared about them, of course I’d demand straight reporting. But all the established news organizations are just PR organs of the state, and have been for some time. Pravda for Democrats. I care about them about as much as I care about an ad agency.
The Times used to have a public editor columnist who scrutinized the paper for bias. What happened to that?
Progress cannot be stopped. It can only be slowed down.
Well, if you look at democrat run cities, you see that ‘progress’ is going in reverse, fast.
“Let us define progress to mean, just because we can do a thing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we must do that thing.”
Extra points for anyone who can guess which movie that statement came from. :-)Ganahee
Fascist take you out back and shoot you if you don’t follow their orders
I made a booboo. Let’s try this again:
“Let us define progress to mean, just because we can do a thing, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we must do that thing.”
Extra points for anyone who can guess which movie that statement came from. 🙂