The Myth of Journalistic Ethics and Neutrality

Great Debates
1

Driving home tonight I was listening to a local weekly program in which a local radio personality interviews authors about their work. Tonight’s author was a history professor who had won an award for a book on the history of newspapers in America. The things he pointed out made me reexamine what we commonly believe about journalism.

We often hear from journalists that they are held to standards and ethics. The two I’m concerned with at the moment are:

  1. Journalists have an obligation to investigate, uncover, and publicly reveal the truth.
  2. Journalists must remain neutral and stick to the facts.

Where do these ideas come from?

The US Constitution grants a certain amount of freedom to the press. While it grants the press liberty, it does not impose any obligations upon them. So why do journalists feel that they owe an obligation to investigate anything? Rightly speaking, should it not be said that a journalist is free to choose between launching an investigation or refraining from doing so? Isn’t his sole obligation to his employer? Defamation law imposes an obligation to not print falsehoods (in some situations, defamation law is limited in situations involving the press.) But where does the idea come from that journalists have an affirmative duty to reveal truths?

And where does this demand for neutrality come from? Historically, newspapers have always been openly political advocates. Their function was not to report the facts, but rather to comment upon them. According to this history professor, the first known case of a newspaper hiring a reporter to discover and report facts was in New York City in 1830. The practice of doing so was limited mostly to major cities until the 20th century. And until the 70’s, papers still felt comfortable publicly declaring their politics. So why is it now expected that journalists remain neutral and report only the facts, that they refrain from letting their bias impact their interpretation and presentation of the facts?

The paper to which I subscribe, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, still to this day publishes the following statement of purpose from their founder, Joseph Pulitzer:

The Post has set it’s own ethics with a platform like this. And those ethics do not conform with the notion of merely reporting the facts. They may belong to no party, but their political interests are made quite clear, and the role of the paper is clearly spelled out in this directive. Isn’t this a good thing overall?

I see no basis for the idea that journalists owe any duty to a set of profession-wide ethics. Such a set of obligations has no historical justification. And I see no reason to impose such requirements upon them now. Ultimately, being a journalist is ethically no different than working at a meat-packing factory. The employer determines the purpose of the enterprise, the employees carry it out. The owner of a media enterprise ought to be free to determine what role his enterprise will play, in politics, in the community, and in the ultimate goal: making money. To impose any other duty on them is unfair, and can also rob us of the traditional benefits of newspapers, which served as a forum for advancing political ideas.

2

Clearly and well put RexDart. I’d only add that “neutrality in reporting” is semantically impossible. Impossible, that is, if the purpose is to speak the truth. Such is the nature of words and meaning.

3

Meat packers probably aren’t a good analogy. If you want to say butchers, I could argue that most butchers know that, for historical reasons, people have both a certain set of suspicions (the sausages are made from cats!) and expectations (tender meat) and that if you don’t meet the customer’s higher expectations, they’ll assume you are the worst kind of butcher and take their business elsewhere.

If you read up on the origins of newspapers, including the period before American muckraking, you’ll see that these obligations to fair reporting arise from the history of pamphlets and broadsheets and early newspapers.

4

Who exactly is planning on doing this? Certainly there’s no realistic possibility for any kind of government licensure. And the industry itself has shown no interest in self-regulation. Most professions have some ability to police their members, at least to the extent of rooting out gross malfeasance. But not journalism.

I don’t think there’s ever been any recognized obligation to root out the truth. And the “neutrality” you speak of is known to be impossible on a practical basis. All that most consumers of the news would ask is that controversial issues be treated fairly with appropriate attention to viewpoints that differ from those of the reporter. Many refuse to do this, which is why we have proliferating news sources, all offering their own bias de jour, and a public that is ever-suspicious of the latest revelation.

5

As a journalist, I think it is of tantamount importance that the utmost effect is kept to stick to neutrality and fact-reporting.

Obvious exceptions to this are editorial and opinion columns.

How non-neutrality manifests itself in a newspaper is by choice of interviewee, or angle or story. This ranges from innocent stuff, like a local newspaper choosing only to interview predominantly war veterans from their geographical area for example. Less innocent stuff would be a newspaper only printing the views of right wing politicians rather than democrat ones. Or choosing solely to print stories where the perpetrators of crime were black. Or giving more space or higher prominence to those stories.

But based on the individual story taken in isolation - that should still maintain journalistic integrity. Journalist Bill might have been ordered to do a story on a black mugger. His story might be placed on the front page. He might have been asked to provide three thousand words. But he should still remain as factual and impartial as possible, and avoid all judgement words in his story. If he quotes opinion, it should be clearly quoted and attributed as opinion, not as his own words. As far as it is possible to do so.

I agree that there is no onus to necessarily investigate, just report. But obviously claims that are contentious, highly unusual or controversial need to be checked out.

6

Non-neutrality: the very fact of reporting something is non-neutral. By choosing to report Event A and not Event B, you are implying that Event A is more important than Event B.

And if no-one reports Event B, then as far as anyone knows, it never happened. So in a sense you are “reporting” that Event B never happened.

Discuss.

7

Cowgirl - by buying the paper that reports Event A, you are supporting the newsroom opinion that Event A is the hot issue.

Discuss.

8

As a journalism student in college right now, this topic interests me. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to hunt through all my notes and the textbook to gather cites for this debate right now. That said, I recommend you look at The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. It addresses this notion of “objectivity” and the responsibilities journalists have to the public. We’re using it in class as a textbook, and it’s well-written.

Hopefully, my schedule will clear up in a day or two and I’ll be back to discuss this some more.

9

I quite like the fact that newspapers present information with bias. Just so long as that bias is clear. Then, you can buy two papers at different ends of the spectrum, and you’re likely to have the full story by implication and omission, if nothing else. Real problems arise when the media claim to be totally neutral when this is not the case…

Cheers.

10

I tried to post about this, but it got swallowed up in the maintenance sleep.

Journalism students/new journalists: be very careful what you put your real name to. If I run a Yahoo! search on my real name, dozens of articles I’ve written for various publications come up. Fortunately, none of them are particularly contentious. But if I’d done a stint at - for example - an ultra right wing publication, where my articles would have been edited to toe the party line, it could be awkward later trying to write for a more moderate, or left-wing publication. Readers or editors could easily access my prior portfolio.

So my advice is keep a range of pseudonymn/nom de plumes for the different types of work you might do. For practical reasons (ie moonlighting!) you’ll want to keep a separate name anyway, shoud you have a lucrative freelance thing going as well as your regular job. Eg: write under a different name for tear-jerk tabloid woman’s mag stuff than you use for more serious political articles. Because the more established you get the more your name will represent your professionalism, so you really want to protect it.

Fellow media peole and editors understand that most journos are forced to write for a range of stuff to put bread on the table, readers understand this considerably less, they may interpret it as hypocrisy. Likewise there’s nothing wrong writing some tabloid schlock stuff, but it threatens your credibility among readers of more high-brow publications.

11

When I found that my freind, a reporter for a major newspaper in a nearby big city, was in a union, I asked how he could objectively report on management/labor issues.

His reply?

“We can’t.”

12

Joachim Pieper, I posted thoughts similar to this recently and got flamed for it. However, I still agree.

Everyone has bias. What’s best is for it at least to be out in the open, with both sides presented on every issue. Then the viewer or reader can make an informed decision on thier own about whats right.

13

I think you probably need to do that if you work for Corporate Media. However, if you join the Independent Media Center, and help to expand it, you may very well end up putting bread on the table with dignity without having to prostitute yourself under differen names to various Corporate Media outlets.

Just my opinion.

14

Journalists are like everyone else: they set their own ethical standards. Some of us frown at the low morals of our contemporaries; some don’t. Some of us strive for neutrality in many issues; some don’t.

But you’re right-- there is no basis for every journalist to confirm to the same ethical standard. I think there should be, but many ‘journalists’ could give a rat’s ass.

15

Years ago, I remember hearing a liberal journalist say, “It’s not my job to be fair. It’s my job to be accurate. If what I write is factually correct, I’ve done my job, and I really don’t care if conservatives think I’m being fair or unbiased.”

I have no problem with that philosophy. Every journalist has his own set of beliefs and prejudices, and I don’t expect him to put those aside when he covers a story. Nor do I automatically discount a news story, simply because the reporter doesn’t share my beliefs. Hey look, Carl Bernstein’s hatred of Richard Nixon may be what drove him to pursue the Watergate story so doggedly, but he got the story right, so what do his motives or “biases” really matter?

If I had my druthers, American newspapers and TV networks should be like their counterparts in Europe: that is, they should wear their political beliefs on their sleeves! Everyone in France knows that Le Monde is the voice of the Left and Le Figaro is the voice of the Right, and neither publication tries to pretend otherwise. But when they do hard, factual news stories, few are inclined to dismiss what they right simply because of the papers’ editorial slants.

It’s fine by me that the New York Times pushes a left-wing agenda, just as it’s fine by me that the Wall Street Journal is driven by right-wing ideology. But when I read either paper, I’m generally confident that their news stories are based on facts (I’m far less confident when I watch either CNN or Fox).

16

I could not disagree with this more.

What tends to happen then is extremists of the left and right gravitate toward the news sources that share their often shrill views, and wind up screaming opposing versions of the “truth” at each other without any real hope of communication. Those with a lesser ideological bent, if faced with a relative absence of dependable news outlets striving for fairness, are distrustful of what they hear, and lose interest.

Look what happens here when devotees of Fox News and the Guardian get into an argument.

17

Jack - yes. And it is so frustrating that they cannot see that their media of choice is so polarised. And then they accuse all the centre ground media of being left- or right-biased, depending.

18

What infuriates me is the way that journalists, who at least theoretically have some training in the social sciences, can actually believe that they can even BE unbiased. We all have bias. It is not possible to act without having bias. I have never, not once in my life, encountered any press outlet in any medium that is fair and unbiased. They are ALL biased. That doesn’t bother me. What bothers me is the hypocrisy and self-delusion that they wallow in when they claim that they are “unbiased”.

Indeed, I use that as a yardstick to determine how dishonest a media outlet is. The more it brags about being “even”, “fair”, or “unbiased”, the more I presume that it is biased, unfair, and self-delusional.

19

I’ve said before that the only truly objective people are dead. In other words, total objectivity is impossible for members of the news media.

Recognizing your biases and striving for fairness is not only possible in news reporting, it is essential.

20

Now that’s patently untrue. There are dozens of issues going on about which I could care less-- say, an increase of police enforcement in a neighbourhood filled with drug dealers.

The cops say they need more money to have more patrols and arrest more dealers and junkies.
City council says that’s stupid, because drug addiction is a disease, and the courts will just turf all these people being arrested after being sentenced to time served.
The junkies say they need a safe injection site, now!

Me, I don’t give a fuck either way. The whole situation is something that will have *no * appreciable effect on my life. I have no bias. I’m going to talk to people in all situations, and tie it all into an interesting narrative, but the end result is something I have no interest in.

Now there are issues that I care about – and you know what, my actions will be the same. Unlike Dogface, I am very capable of taking a disinterested view about something that I happen to be passionate about, and acting in a fair, balanced, and unbiased manner. It’s called self-control-- the same self-control that lets me go down to the naked beach with all the cute chicks and not get an erection :wink: