mediacrit.com

It might come as a surprise to many people (as it did to me) that the lengthy and thoughtful Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists does not contain a single reference to the word “objectivity” or any variation of it.

I’m not only surprised, but also glad, because the idea of objectivity is ruining journalism.

The idea that journalists could and should be objective emerged from modern social thought around the turn of the last century. If modern science could be effectively objective, why can’t journalists? So, emulating the intentional disinterest of scientists in white lab coats conducting experiments, objective-style journalism suggested that reporters merely report the facts, and not inject their own opinions or thoughts into the story.

Unfortunately, the objective style doesn’t always get us to the truth. In fact, blind adherence to the style of objectivity can take us further from the truth, as political spin-doctors manipulate journalism that works as nothing more than stenography, passing along messages with no comment or criticism.

This is what makes much of today’s journalism so maddening – that insinuations and downright lies can get the privilege of being treated as news, particularly when the lies and insinuations come from “expert” or high-level sources.

Consider a typical case from the recent presidential campaign. On November 1, the day before the presidential election, Vice President Dick Cheney was at a campaign stop in Fort Dodge, where he (to quote the AP story on this) “said John Kerry relied on public polls before deciding how to react to the resurfacing of Osama bin Laden in a videotape.”

As all objective-style news stories do, this article got an opposing view, and reported “Gov. Tom Vilsack denied Kerry took a poll.”

That was the gist of the entire article, which ran at the bottom of page one of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, and was headlined “Cheney: Kerry checked the polls before reacting to bin Laden tape.”

The way this story is framed, Cheney’s statement carries just as much weight—if not more, since he gets the headline, photo, and the assertive position in the charges—as Kerry’s stand-in, Vilsack.

Yet, the entire legitimacy of the story rested on the question that the story never answered: how does Cheney know that Kerry relied on polls? Given that Cheney offers no evidence, why is this story on the first page, or even news at all?

The answer is objectivity. Cheney makes an allegation (never called an allegation in the story – it merely states that Cheney “said” this) and has no evidence to back it up. Then we get Vilsack’s denial. One opinion versus another opinion. So, how do we even begin to determine whom to believe?

The problem of objective-style journalism has confused most of the country this campaign season. The most shocking evidence of this is in the findings of a recent survey by PIPA, the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (see www.pipa.org). The results indicated that despite the clear conclusions of detailed investigations, in the month before the elections 49% of Americans (72 percent of Bush supporters) continued to believe Iraq had actual weapons of mass destruction or a major WMD program, and 52% of Americans (75% of Bush supporters) believed that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda.

What confused us so? The persistent flow of “objective” news stories that reported Bush and Cheney’s unfounded statements that the weapons, weapons programs, and links to al Qaeda existed.

On Cheney’s November 1 allegations against Kerry, there was actually clear evidence that showed Cheney’s statements were untrue, but that didn’t make it into the AP article that ran in the Courier. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported the same day, the poll in question was taken on the previous Friday night and Saturday, after Kerry made his comments reacting to the bin Laden tape on Friday afternoon.

One of the first rules from the SPJ Code of Ethics is to “test the accuracy of information from all sources.” So, the first question Cheney should have been required to answer is “how do you know?” If he couldn’t support his charge, there shouldn’t have been a story.
If Cheney further insisted on making outlandish claims, perhaps a later story should be that the vice president insists on making outlandish, unsupported claims.

Is this objective? I’m not sure. Is it the kind of accurate and truthful story we need to make informed decisions? Yes.