Objectivity in Journalism E-Book

Steven Maras

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Key Concepts in Journalism
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 458

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Objectivity in journalism is a key topic for debate in media, communication and journalism studies, and has been the subject of intensive historical and sociological research. In the first study of its kind, Steven Maras surveys the different viewpoints and perspectives on objectivity. Going beyond a denunciation or defence of journalistic objectivity, Maras critically examines the different scholarly and professional arguments made in the area. Structured around key questions, the book considers the origins and history of objectivity, its philosophical influences, the main objections and defences, and questions of values, politics and ethics. This book examines debates around objectivity as a transnational norm, focusing on the emergence of objectivity in the US, while broadening out discussion to include developments around objectivity in the UK, Australia, Asia and other regions.

Leseprobe

Objectivity in Journalism

Key Concepts in Journalism

Citizen Witnessing, Stuart Allan

Objectivity in Journalism, Steven Maras

Reinventing Professionalism, Silvio Waisbord

Objectivity in Journalism

Steven Maras

polity

Copyright © Steven Maras 2013

The right of Steven Maras to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2013 by Polity Press

Polity Press

65 Bridge Street

Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press

350 Main Street

Malden, MA 02148, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-7456-6392-0

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website: www.politybooks.com

Contents

Detailed contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1  Why and when did journalistic objectivity arise?

2  What are the main objections to journalistic objectivity?

3  Why is there so much dispute over ‘the facts’?

4  What are the grounds on which journalistic objectivity has been defended?

5  Is objectivity a passive or active process?

6  Can objectivity coexist with political or ethical commitment?

7  Is objectivity changing in an era of 24/7 news and on-line journalism?

8  Is objectivity a universal journalistic norm?

References

Index

Detailed contents

Introduction

Objectivity as a trans-national norm?

Defining objectivity

Why does objectivity in journalism matter?

An unpopular ethical touchstone

Starting points

1   Why and when did journalistic objectivity arise?

The drivers of journalistic objectivity

The professionalization argument

The technology argument

The commercialization argument

The political argument

Other factors

Dating objectivity in journalism: the ‘Schudson–Schiller’ problem

The proto-objective era of news as commodity, 1830–1880

Objectivity as democratic realist epistemology

Objectivity as a reporter-focused occupational or organizational ethic, 1880–1900

Objectivity as informational ethic, circa 1900

The ideal of objectivity, post-World War I 51

Duelling doctrines: bias and credibility, 1960– present

Conclusion

2   What are the main objections to journalistic objectivity?

Values

Scientistic journalism and empty facts

Objectivity as biased and irresponsible

Source dependence

Frame-blindness

Objectivity as contradiction in terms and dangerous myth

Objectivity as a bystander’s journalism: the journalism of attachment

The nature of truth and reality

The view from nowhere

Conclusion

3   Why is there so much dispute over ‘the facts’?

The uses and abuses of philosophy

Putting facts and truths together

Correspondence and coherence

Empiricism

Positivism

Pragmatism

Realism and naturalism

Facticity and issues of communication

Separation theories

‘Postmodernism’

4   What are the grounds on which journalistic objectivity has been defended?

Coherency grounds

Interpretive grounds

Factual grounds

Metaphysical grounds

Procedural grounds

‘Standpoint’

‘Pragmatic’ grounds

Conclusion

5   Is objectivity a passive or active process?

Objectivity through ‘subtraction’

‘Additive’ objectivity

The journalism of attachment

Interpretive reporting

Re-assessing interpretive reporting in the McCarthy era

Conclusion

6   Can objectivity coexist with political or ethical commitment?

Facts, values and the world

Objectivity as ethical and ideological commitment

Reporting the critical counter-culture

The caring journalist

The engaged journalist and the public agenda

Objectivity as war journalism

Objectivity and the watchdog role

Public or civic journalism

Conclusion

7   Is objectivity changing in an era of 24/7 news and on-line journalism?

Cables, satellites and the challenges of change

The foxification of news

Reinventing objectivity at the BBC

Al-Jazeera

News blogs and citizen journalism

Conclusion

8   Is objectivity a universal journalistic norm?

Objectivity as a norm

Trans-nationalism, norms and social conditions

To what extent has the objectivity norm been adopted outside of the US?

Objectivity and ‘European’ journalism

Objectivity and the British connection

The British Broadcasting Corporation

Australia

‘Asian values’ in journalism

Conclusion

References

Index

Acknowledgements

I hope this book honours the efforts of the many researchers and writers, historians, practitioners and critics of objectivity discussed and referred to in it. This project has benefited from the input of many individuals to whom I am grateful.

My interest in objectivity became serious in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on America and the War on Terror, a period which tested the applicability and relevance of the concept in all kinds of ways. Lelia Green was a valued collaborator in my early thinking. As my thoughts coalesced into a book proposal, and supported by research leave at the University of Sydney in 2008, I received invaluable input on philosophical questions from Chris Fleming. Richard Stanton was a wise counsel in my decision to approach Polity Press. Megan Le Masurier and Marc Brennan diligently read early drafts and provided very thoughtful comment. My other department colleagues, but especially Penny O’Donnell and Antonio Castillo, offered much appreciated advice and encouragement. I remain indebted to the three anonymous reviewers of the initial proposal who offered valuable encouragement and guidance.

During 2009, Heidi Lenffer provided efficient research support, supplied by the School of Letters, Art and Media research scheme. In the concluding stages, while on research leave in 2011, and during the final write up in early 2012, I benefited from the encouragement and input of a number of my colleagues in the Department of Media and Communications, and beyond. Many thanks to my Head of School, Annamarie Jagose, and Chair of Department, Gerard Goggin, for their support during the completion of the manuscript. John O’Carroll, Tim Dwyer and Anne Dunn all commented on different chapter drafts. Fiona Martin provided much valued guidance on objectivity, transparency, journalism and new media. Megan Le Masurier offered indispensible advice on how to blend the different historical and theoretical aspects of this research into more readable form. Her ‘on call’ editorial support was also much appreciated. Peter Fray took the time to comment astutely on several key chapters from a practitioner perspective. Bill Loges of Oregon State University offered invaluable comments on two chapters, and especially my approach to objectivity, ethics and new media in relation to The New York Times and Fox News Channel examples. I am also indebted to the two anonymous reviewers of the penultimate version of the manuscript for their astute comments and constructive criticism.

This book has benefited immensely from the support of library staff at the University of Sydney, especially the document delivery section, and I wish to acknowledge the significant contribution under time pressure of Kim Williams, Philippa Stevens, Richard Black, and John Wu, among others, as well as law librarians Patrick O’Mara and Grant Wheeler. Jonathan Seitz, Editorial Assistant for the Nieman Reports at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University provided generous support. I also wish to acknowledge the help of Tal Nadan, Reference Archivist of the New York Public Library; Kristina Ackermann, managing editor of Editor & Publisher Magazine; and Tamara Palmer, in the Office of the Clerk Assistant (Committees), Department of the House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra. My special thanks to Paul Chadwick for facilitating access to key past and current documents relating to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and objectivity.

Like many other books, this one was written in between carrying out administrative and teaching duties, attending to family and friends, dashing to daycare and physiotherapy. My thanks especially to Justin Payne and Tessie Phan for their support and encouragement during late 2011–12. Since 2006, I have had the good fortune of discussing and debating many of the themes in this book with students in the subject Media, Law and Ethics. This book has in a sense been written for, and in dialogue with, them. I have also benefited not only from the general professionalism of Polity editorial and production staff, but specifically from the patient, intelligent and rigorous editing of Andrea Drugan.

This book could not have been written without the support of my partner Teresa Rizzo, who read and commented on the final draft, but also nourished the project and myself in so many ways over an extended period of time. My thanks to my son Luc-Xuhao Maras for his patience. This book is dedicated to my father, Tomislav Maras, who loves a good intellectual and political debate, and has encouraged me to tackle issues that matter to the wider public.

Introduction

Few ideas are as contentious in the world of media and journalism as the ideal of objective reporting. The tradition of objectivity has been termed ‘one of the great glories of American Journalism’ (Barth 1951: 8), and considered ‘beyond question the most important development in journalism since the Anglo-Saxon press became free from authority’ (Brucker 1949: 269). Studies have shown that, up to the 1990s, US journalism was a ‘stronghold of professional journalism dedicated to objective reporting’ (Donsbach 1995: 30). For some, objectivity is the cement of good journalism, the ‘cornerstone of the professional ideology of journalists in liberal democracies’ (Lichtenberg 1991a: 216). For others, objectivity is a kind of deception, obscuring cultural, capitalistic or national bias behind talk of a neutral point of view; promoting faith in an external truth or ideal, an individualistic viewing position that doesn’t exist. Objectivity has been described as a myth and a shibboleth (Bell 1998a: 16). It can be seen as a lifeblood, a high principle, or just a desire to be accurate.

Journalists themselves recognize how difficult objectivity, and the pursuit of it, can be (Myrick 2002: 52). They might suggest the equivalent of ‘Of course, no one can be really objective. But we try to be fair’ (Rosen 1993: 49; also Rosenthal 1969). In light of these reactions, if journalistic objectivity is an ideal, it is surely a complex one. What does it mean to strive for an ideal that can never be attained? Does it mean the ideal is worthless, or does it represent the ultimate journalistic virtue?

One thing to recognize about journalistic objectivity, however, is that the concept (and, indeed, the striving for it) is the product of history, linked to particular cultural formations, as well as the professional aspirations of journalists themselves. We shall explore these formations in the chapters to come. Whether the ideal is viewed positively or negatively, it has an important role in debates about journalism and the media and for that reason deserves close discussion.

Objectivity is a key concept in journalism, media and communication studies. Key works on objectivity in journalism are ‘classics’ in the fields of media sociology and journalism studies, such as those by Michael Schudson, James W. Carey, Gaye Tuchman, Dan Schiller and Herbert Gans (to mention only a few). This literature is broad, using approaches and ideas drawn from history, sociology, political science, organizational studies and analysis of media performance, not to mention the experiences and analyses of journalists themselves. This very diversity perhaps accounts for why we lack a book-length study of objectivity that incorporates an overview of the scholarly literature and the key research problems and questions in the area. This book seeks to fill this gap, surveying and evaluating some key issues in the rich and diverse scholarship of the area.

Objectivity is, at the same time, a key concept for media professionals and practitioners, from broadcasters to bloggers. Many figures have offered denunciations or defences of objectivity based on practical difficulties or concerns. Here, a different kind of gap emerges. An informed debate of the concept, even in practitioner contexts, falls short if we do not have a philosophically and historically nuanced view of how the concept has been defined and what it allows us to do. Few practitioners engage carefully with alternative arguments. In turn, only a few scholars address objectivity as an important aspect of media practice, and as an object of intense reflection by what Barbie Zelizer calls the ‘interpretive community’ of journalists (1993; see Reese 1990). We do not have an authoritative account of how this interpretive community has defined objectivity over the short and long term.

Despite an important turn in academic work to take journalism seriously (Zelizer 2004), professional and academic debates about objectivity from different eras are rarely discussed and compared. It may be possible, as Martin Conboy suggests, to look at objectivity in journalism discursively (2004: 4), but this is not often attempted ‘head on’. Debate has become bogged down in competing programmatic claims that dismiss, affirm or reinvent objectivity from a particular viewpoint, leaving the reader with an often over-simplified perspective on a complex field of debate, scholarship and practice.

To overcome both of these gaps – the lack of an over-arching sense of the scholarship, and a deficit in relating theory to practice, and vice versa – I argue that we need to re-familiarize ourselves with what has been said by different scholars about objectivity, but also to extend a bridge between scholarship and practice. The task of bridging scholarship and practice is a formidable project in itself, since many scholars draw on deep insights about practice (not to mention their own experience as practitioners), while many practitioners draw on philosophical and theoretical ideas with great skill. In this context, I take a particular approach. My method is to engage with core ideas and questions and then make links to key debates from the professions, with the main project to draw out insights about objectivity as a form of media practice.

Debates around interpretation and interpretive reporting, and especially practitioner debates in the US from the McCarthy era, form a special focus here; and in what follows I encourage a reassessment of the relationship between interpretive and objective reporting in this period. While many media historians engage in very specialized debates about objectivity and its origins, other writers no longer attempt to historicize objectivity, dealing primarily with post-McCarthy era versions in which ‘straight’ objectivity is regarded as passive and ineffectual. The 1950s in the US was a time when a positive connection between journalistic objectivity and the processes of democratic deliberation began to be strained: objectivity became, for many, part of the problem not part of the solution. The treatment of civil rights and desegregation in the 1950s (Davies 2005; Methvin 1975 [1970]), the social movements of the 1960s (Gitlin 2003 [1980]), the coverage and handling of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and the 1970s (see Hallin 1986), the civic disengagement of the 1980s (Merritt & Rosen 1998), further cast a cloud over the ideal of objectivity and its relevance as a norm. The consolidation of media ownership of the last fifty years (Ferré 2009: 21), combined with the promise of the Internet to provide diverse points of view and to allow collaboration, have introduced further criticism. Yet, as I argue, our assessment of objectivity since the 1950s has been influenced by views about interpretation that are not always accurate, and leave objectivity in a structurally passive position. Different waves of critique of objectivity have absorbed these views of objectivity and interpretation and frequently repeat the pattern.

In what follows I conceive of my role as both critical reader and guide, teasing out key issues in the scholarship as well as making links to different debates, such as those to do with the origins of objectivity, the status of facts, the place of values in objective reporting, interpretive reporting, the impact of ‘new media’, and objectivity as an international norm. As a critical reader, I see my task as being to highlight important works and themes, and to historicize and contextualize the concept. Like a prospector, this task involves fossicking through current and abandoned fields and ‘passages’ of research. In actuality, this ‘mineshaft’ is made up of a small library of works on journalistic objectivity; I shall purposefully draw on different works from this library more than once, and in different chapters, in order to link, compare and contrast different positions.

As a guide, my goal is to point out hidden or new pathways through the scholarly literature and a narrower selection of professional debates. To help with this task, each chapter of the book is focused around a key question that is often asked by newcomers to the area, including students, but also taken up by scholars researching objectivity. The questions are also linked to issues debated by practitioners. In effect, each of the questions addressed in this book could be explored differently depending on which country you live in. In posing each question, my aim is not to provide a simple yes or no answer, but to explore different issues and examine the way different writers respond to the topic.

Objectivity as a trans-national norm?

While my primary purpose is to analyse, deconstruct and contextualize concepts of objectivity in journalism, objectivity is a practice that is institutionalized in different ways in different cultures. Here we encounter two key issues.

The first issue is how to analyse ‘objectivity in journalism’ across different cultures. Objectivity continues to retain a central, if disputed, place in discussions of journalism as a profession that works across national frontiers. The norm is now being recast in global terms (Ward 2011). However, objectivity in journalism did not arise in different countries at the same time, or emerge for the same reasons. In some cases it did not emerge at all, or emerged only through cross-cultural contact and diffusion. Objectivity is not discussed the same way everywhere. Stuart Allan suggests that in Britain ideals of neutral reporting tend to be left implicit, while in the US they were enshrined as a professional standard (2010: 44). In the US objectivity arises through developments in newspapers, where issues of efficiency, science and professionalization have been at the forefront (Vos 2012: 436). By contrast, in the UK, Australia, and to an extent Canada, public service broadcasting was a key site for articulating the objectivity norm. This leads to significant divergences in the way the ‘drivers’ or factors leading to objectivity are written about.

Allan tackles this particular problem of analysing objectivity in journalism across different cultures by treating ‘objective journalism’ as a trans-national norm that has distinct, recognizable form (2010: 28), usually linked to other norms (such as neutrality), or replaced by the norm of impartiality with which it is regarded as ‘synonymous’ (see Allan 1997: 309). Highlighting the importance of various economic, political and technological factors, Allan points to appeals to professionalism by journalists and a questioning of bias following the First World War as key factors for the wide dissemination of conventions of objective reporting (2010: 28). This book follows Allan in treating objectivity in journalism as an internationally recognizable concept that should be situated in relation to its context. It will also consider different ideas of objectivity and look carefully at the issue of how norms operate across cultures (see chapter 8).

A second issue has to do, specifically, with the question of whether the US case should be privileged. This issue is especially salient given the importance of de-westernizing media and communications study (Curran & Park 2000), but also the need to give specificity to the US case, and analyse it in a manner that recognizes the complexity of how objectivity has developed there. The American model of objectivity may be ‘by far the best known professional model worldwide’, but the critique of objectivity, combined with more careful attention to the ‘ethnocentric’ nature of journalism, makes any treatment of it as a ‘representative specimen’ political (Josephi 2007: 302).

Like the academic fields on which it draws, this book strives to strike a balance between trans-national and nationally bound perspectives on journalistic culture. This task is not always straightforward, however. It is important to recognize that ‘there is not a singular paradigm for Western journalism, but instead multiple paradigms that grow from the national cultures in which they are embedded’ (Berkowitz & Eko 2007: 779–80). There is also criticism of the elevation of objectivity to a ‘universal norm’ (Josephi 2007: 302). This said, debates around of objectivity in journalism in the US are often used as paradigmatic for understanding developments beyond the US. Thus, it becomes possible to look at the way objectivity is historically and culturally marked, but also explore the idea of objectivity as an Anglo-American invention (Chalaby 1996: 304). In this fashion, studies of objectivity in Canada (Hackett & Zhao 1998), Australia (Peterson 1985), France (Chalaby 1996) and the UK (Allan 1997), while highlighting important national differences in the way the public sphere and institutional structures operate, draw extensively on the rise of objectivity in the US as an important framework of analysis.

The ‘linchpin’ status of the US case is complex. On the one hand, the journalistic standards of nineteenth-century America can be traced back to their British and European sources (see Dicken-Garcia 1989: 3–4). On the other hand, UK penny dailies emulated mass circulation strategies forged across the Atlantic in the 1830s (Allan 2010: 34–5). There is little doubt that the hegemonic status of thinking about objectivity in the US context (and journalism studies more generally) has influenced the discussion of objectivity elsewhere; and since this constitutes a ‘norm’, this influence is both pervading and normative.

There is a temptation, especially when seeking to survey scholarship around objectivity, to focus on the US where the concept attracted an enormous amount of scholarly and professional attention for most of the twentieth century. While a fully comparative analysis of the development of objectivity in multiple countries would be desirable, we not only lack some of the basic historical and methodological groundwork for such a project, but there are conceptual problems with it, especially to do with how we study norms and their articulation, and evaluate their actual ‘purchase’ or strength in different cultural contexts (see chapter 8). This book responds to this issue by looking carefully at the problem of treating ‘objective journalism’ as a trans-national norm. As part of this approach, it treats the US case in its specificity, which means examining the different forces at work in the US context in some depth. It also uses US examples to tease out core issues that have wider significance. While it will be impossible to meet the needs of every reader, I broaden the discussion beyond the US where practicable and bring in cases and debates from other countries, and the themes raised here can certainly be explored and localized in greater depth.

Defining objectivity

Perhaps the most succinct definition of objectivity is provided by Walter Cronkite: ‘Objectivity is the reporting of reality, of facts, as nearly as they can be obtained without the injection of prejudice and personal opinion’ (quoted in Knowlton 2005b: 227). However, as with many definitions of objectivity, there are loose threads here which, if pulled, threaten to unravel the whole garment. Why does Cronkite decide to supplement the reporting of reality with the reporting of facts? What does ‘as nearly as they can be obtained’ actually mean? – sourced, comprehended, communicated? Defining objectivity in journalism is not straightforward. An ‘inherently ambiguous’ term (Tumber & Prentoulis 2003: 215), every definition depends on a different concept of what objectivity is, and how it should operate. In this study my aim is not to present a new definition of objectivity for a new media age. Nor is it a defence of objectivity in journalism. It offers, instead, a more serious appreciation of different models and frameworks for objectivity as a theory and a practice in order to create a space for more careful deliberation of the concept. This book considers the way objectivity in journalism has been defined in different ways at different times. The question of definition will inevitably become more complex as our discussion goes on, but for the moment we can draw on the following basic definition that looks at three different aspects of objectivity: values, process and language. This definition is ‘basic’ not because it is the simplest (indeed, each aspect could be elaborated in some detail), but because it captures ‘key’ aspects of objectivity in journalism, even though not every critic focuses on every aspect.

In terms of values, following Everette E. Dennis, we can link objectivity in journalism to three key aims:

  1)   Separating facts from opinion.

  2)   Presenting an emotionally detached view of the news.

  3)   Striving for fairness and balance … (Dennis & Merrill 1984: 111)

This description is echoed in Michael Schudson’s view that objectivity ‘guides journalists to separate facts from values and report only the facts’ in a ‘cool, rather than emotional’ tone, ‘taking pains to represent fairly each leading side’ (2001: 150). It aligns with ideas of objectivity as recounting events in a disinterested or impersonal way, aligned with precepts of neutrality and balance.

Objectivity is clearly multi-faceted. It is, as a result, often articulated in a cluster of terms such as impartiality, neutrality, accuracy, fairness, honesty, commitment to the truth, depersonalization and balance. Others highlight values such as the reporting of news without bias or slant, the describing of reality accurately, presentation of the main points, even-handedness (see McQuail 1992: 184). Some go further to link the presentation of facts with an idea of mirroring or reflecting reality. Objectivity can relate semantically to a very wide field indeed. In Schiller’s terms, objectivity is ‘polysemic’ or has many possible meanings, and, furthermore, is open to different activations. He warns us that this openness makes the concept hard to grasp: ‘its universality as an ideal might shield open disparities in its application and interpretation’ (1981: 196). This perhaps accounts for why it is difficult to have the final word on objectivity, and why discussion of it is on-going.

It is important to note, however, that objectivity does not just operate at the level of values, but also procedures. Jeremy Iggers suggests that the values and procedures do not always come into play at the same time, and that ‘there are many journalists who practice procedural objectivity without any … epistemological commitments’ (1998: 92). In other words, journalists do not need to commit philosophically to objectivity in order to practise objective journalism. This procedural dimension might include providing a contrasting, balancing, or alternative viewpoint, using supporting evidence, ensuring close attribution through quoting, and finally organizing the story into a familiar news format (Miraldi 1990: 16; also Kessler & McDonald 1989: 21–3; Ward 2004: 18). These procedures are central to the commitment to verification and truth underpinning objective methods, but at the same time, as practices, they are open to variation across different news organizations.

There is a third important aspect of objectivity in journalism, which is arguably the least well understood. It has to do with the way objectivity forms a ‘language game’. Different scholars have referred to this language game in different ways, but all of them point to the link between journalistic objectivity and specific strategies of re-presenting events, facts and details. Jay Rosen, for instance, highlights the way objectivity operates as a ‘form of persuasion’: ‘It tries to persuade all possible users of the account that the account can be trusted because it is unadorned’ (Rosen 2010a). Stylistically it plays to facts and not opinions. It is a ‘system of signs’ designed to give the impression of authority and trust, especially in core descriptions and information such as who, what, when, etc.

Schiller tackles the language game from a different direction. He argues that objectivity, at least in the sense understood from the mid-twentieth century, functions as an ‘invisible frame’ through which the story comes into existence on its own, independently of the reporter (1981: 1). This term captures a complex communication situation in which journalists ‘report’ rather than create the news. This situation is central to conceptions of the press as being above ‘the “wrangling” and conflict of the public-political arena’ (Kaplan 2002: 169; see also Hackett & Zhao 1998: 143; Iggers 1998: 109).

All news is constructed and governed by discursive conventions. As Schiller describes it,

an invisible frame brackets news reports as a particular kind of public knowledge and a key category in popular epistemology. News reports repeatedly claim that, ideally at least, they recount events without the intrusion of value judgements or symbols. News is … a report on reality, and hence not really a story at all, but merely the facts – this is the claim. (1981: 2)

This invisible frame is not meant to be seen, or crossed. Indeed, Schiller argues it conceals ‘the very presence of conventions and thus masks the patterned structure of news’. The frame is defined in terms of a commitment to the world ‘out there’ in which facts exist externally and independently of the observer. As such, it forms an important aspect of the procedures supporting objectivity, along with the ‘reality effect’ (Barthes 1986) that much objective reporting seeks to promote.

Another aspect of this communication situation, however, is that the invisible frame gives rise to reader expectations that a report will ‘produce a neutral, impartial reaction in the reader’ (Noyes 1953). This reaction is difficult to define categorically, and can vary greatly depending on cultural perspective. Nevertheless, if breached, it offends a sense of fairness, and gives rise to declarations of partiality, imbalance and bias. The reader is meant to decide the truth. However, the reader’s sense of fairness is linked to issues of style and format, which in themselves depend on familiarity and even habit. So, although objectivity is habitually linked to the inverted pyramid form of presenting the news, an extremely impressionistic and interpretive report can meet the test of being objective if ‘the reader knows what is being done to him’ (Noyes 1953: 63), and issues of accuracy can be reconciled with issues of authenticity. This accounts for why the new journalists of the 1970s were able to work with ‘a strange sort of objectivity’ (Wolfe 1973: 66).

While heeding Schiller’s advice that objectivity is diverse in its application and interpretation, these three aspects – values, procedures and language – comprise a broad, basic definition of journalistic objectivity. With all three aspects in view we can suggest that they define an ‘idea-complex’, that is, ‘a general model for conceiving, defining, arranging and evaluating news texts, news practices and news institutions’ (Hackett & Zhao 1998: 86, emphasis in original).

Why does objectivity in journalism matter?

Given the intense discussion of objectivity in journalism by scholars and professionals, and its complex history, another question presents itself: why should we care about objectivity in journalism? Broadly speaking, there are four important reasons.

The first reason why objectivity matters is related to politics and government. Much has been written about the relationship between journalism and democracy and the role of the press – a great deal of it in dispute. Nevertheless, for Stephen J. A. Ward, ‘objectivity is an essential norm for responsible journalistic communication in the public interest’, and is a bulwark against authoritarianism and obscurantism (2004: 321, 318). As Schiller notes, ‘with its universalistic intent, its concern for public rationality based on equal access to the facts, objectivity harboured a profoundly democratic promise’ (1981: 181).

In the 1920s Walter Lippmann draws a direct link between journalism, democracy and objectivity, when he suggests in Liberty and the News that ‘the present crisis of western democracy is a crisis in journalism’. He observes that questions were arising about world affairs that demanded facts not readily available (1920: 4–5). His solution involved, in part, turning to objectivity. Lippmann highlights a ‘loss of contact with objective information. Public as well as private reason depends upon it’ (1920: 57). He advocates better journalism training around the ‘ideal of objective testimony’ (1920: 82). Lippmann’s argument points to the importance of the provision of impartial information in society, and defines one key way in which objectivity has mattered, and (depending on one’s point of view) may continue to matter.

A second reason why objectivity matters relates to ‘media power’, a term which means more than just ‘the power of the press’. I use it in several senses, including: the capacity of the media to ‘do’ certain things, its power within (and some would say ‘over’) society, also power struggles between different parts of the industry and profession. Media power describes how the press and journalism occupies its field, and has to do with the way public discourse is imagined, and promoted or controlled, via terms such as objectivity.

Power also operates on the level of professional standards. Every standard relies upon, or is defined by, a realm of ‘hack’ work that is disparaged. However, the line between the professional and hack can be difficult to determine. Objectivity has long been linked to a move away from the excesses of sensational and ‘yellow’ journalism towards ‘respectable’ journalism. But this movement can be viewed as part of a deeper struggle for power in the mediasphere. Historical research on objectivity is crucial here because of the way it shines a light on the links between objectivity and commercialism and the popular press, and provides a fuller picture of the interaction between the so-called ‘respectable’ and ‘popular’ press.

Even today, debates between quality and tabloid newspapers take place within what Pippa Norris terms a ‘media malaise’ framework in which the popular press is linked to moral decline (2000: 5). They ignore or downplay the historical ties between objectivity and the tabloid commercial press (see chapter 1). Yet, arguably, the bullying tactics and ‘moral wars’ (Pray 1855: 264) around the penny press of the 1830s–1840s are still evident in debates around objective versus sensational reporting.

The third reason why objectivity matters relates to media performance. As Andie Tucher notes, ‘Clearly people want the press to appear objective. The best proof of that lies in their frequent complaints that it doesn’t’ (1994: 202). For all of the criticism of the concept, the ‘effort at objectivity and neutrality is important’ (Glasgow University Media Group 1976: xii). In the 1940s, when the Commission on Freedom of the Press, better known as the Hutchins Commission, stated famously that ‘It is no longer enough to report the fact truthfully. It is now necessary to report the truth about the fact’, this was in the context of a debate about objectivity as not just a goal, but a fetish (Siebert et al. 1956: 88). ‘Objective’ is currently an active criterion of evaluation for each Wikipedia site. Denis McQuail makes measuring objectivity a core task of his book Media Performance (1992). He notes that, despite the controversy surrounding the concept, objectivity is ‘valued by the news audience for its practical benefits, since it is key to trustworthiness and reliability and plays an important part in assessments of performance by the media public’ (1992: 183).

Within the area of media studies known as ‘media performance’ analysis, objectivity is seen as a core communication value, helping to situate the public interest claims of different agents (1992: 28). McQuail reminds us of the difficulty of the task of assessing objectivity, both in relation to audience expectations and the standards of performance in place: which makes ‘application of objectivity as a criterion of performance itself less than fully objective’ (1992: 191). This explains why other terms such as ‘accuracy’ and ‘impartiality’ are taking its place. The latter are regarded as more directly measurable, allowing the researcher to place to one side the very difficult organizational and cultural factors that McQuail discusses as part of his judgement that objectivity has an ‘ ambiguous standing’ as a standard. He writes:

Objectivity itself can only be assessed, with varying degrees of approximation, by way of indicators. All the research procedures described call for value judgements about priorities, criteria of performance and choice of indicators. The ‘objective assessment of objectivity’ is only possible within severe limits set by another set of values (our own or those we adopt). (1992: 236)

Evaluating media performance occurs within ‘cultural settings’ that are defining and delimiting. However, despite its ‘ambiguous standing’, objectivity remains for many a key concept when discussing the responsibility and accountability of the media.

A fourth reason why objectivity in journalism matters has to do with ethics. An important aspect of ethics relates to judgement, especially in terms of the selection of sources, and the application of ‘news values’. While it is common for objectivity to be described in terms of ensuring that value judgements do not intrude on the story (White 2000: 390), objectivity also operates as a form of judgement. This judgement refers not only to how stories are handled, and deemed newsworthy, but also to the way some events or facts are deemed to fall inside or outside of the category of ‘news’. Judgement relates, then, to how news journalists construct their ‘news net’, and navigate the web of facts, and gossip (Tuchman 1978). Of course, some facts are very difficult to verify, which leads, potentially, to a series of disputed claims from different parties, none of which are authoritative. Judgement comes into play in seeing the relationship between the facts and the truth, but also the facts and the shape or momentum of the story. Bad judgement can lead to a crossing of the ‘invisible frame’ whereby the journalist inserts him or herself into the story, or even becomes a ‘player’ in the story (an occupational hazard for the political reporter).

Ethics also relates to the ‘compact’ between readers, journalists and news organizations (Fray 2011). William Morgan, ombudsman for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, suggests that ‘objectivity’, ‘balance’ and ‘fairness’ are really just words. ‘None of them is easy to define or to guarantee or even to achieve’ (1992). He reminds us that beneath the debate about words, however, is a more important issue to do with norms. He connects objectivity to what can be termed a ‘regulative ideal’, which has to do with the way journalists shape their work to fulfil their responsibility to the organization, their subjects, and their readers and audiences. Jaap van Ginneken sees this as an important aspect of objectivity: ‘the notion of objectivity … is always implicitly related to the notion of (an agreement between) relevant audiences’ (1998: 43; see also Kieran 1997: 46).

There is no doubt, as we shall see in the next section, that while objectivity may have once defined credibility, the ethic of objectivity is today contentious as a norm or standard of journalism. But that is not to say that it holds no lessons for us, or is not useful (given its still wide public recognition), or indeed, cannot be re-crafted into a meaningful ethic. Indeed, if objectivity in journalism can be said to embody, in a particular time and place, a compact between writers and readers in a relationship to do with the production and consumption of information and the public good, then it seems that a compact of this nature can still be vital in an age when information travels at the speed of light and via innumerable networks. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, objectivity in journalism represented a response to a particular set of technical, economic, cultural and social problems and issues. While those problems may have taken on new forms, we can still gain a great deal from looking at objectivity as a certain kind of invention, one that can inform the way we tackle the technical, economic, informational, discursive and cultural problems of our own time.

An unpopular ethical touchstone

One of the dilemmas that confronts any study of objectivity in journalism is that the term is infrequently codified into legislation or regulations. Objectivity is currently not a popular concept in regulatory circles, and ‘less secure in the role of ethical touchstone than it has been’ (Overholser 2006: 11). Ward notes that objectivity was not put forward as a principle or guideline when the Canadian Association of Journalists redrafted their code in 2002. ‘Instead, members cited related concepts: accuracy, credibility, fairness, independence, and so on’ (2004: 251). This accords with a sense that these latter terms are more amenable to evaluation and measurement through surveys, economic and political study, or content analysis.

The code of the UK National Union of Journalists, last amended in 1998, does not include objectivity (National Union of Journalists 2011). The Society of Professional Journalists in the US did not have objectivity in its code until 1973, when it finally drafted one after borrowing its original code from the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1926. The now superseded 1973 code includes the concept of objectivity in the preamble, where it declares that ‘responsibilities carry obligations that require journalists to perform with intelligence, objectivity, accuracy, and fairness’. Also in Part IV Accuracy and Objectivity, after declaring ‘Truth is our ultimate goal’ in the first article, the code states in the second article that

Objectivity in reporting the news is another goal, which serves as the mark of an experienced professional. It is a standard of performance toward which we strive. We honor those who achieve it. (Society of Professional Journalists 1973)

Surviving the 1984 and 1987 revisions of the code, objectivity remained in the code until September 1996, when it was replaced by a broader commitment to professional integrity and the ideal to ‘Seek Truth and Report It: Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information’ (Society of Professional Journalists 1996).

Objectivity has never appeared in the Australian Journalists’ Association code of ethics (the association incorporated into the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance in 1992) despite revisions of the code in 1984 and 1999 (Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance 1999). In the Australian context, the sole regulatory appearance objectivity makes is in the legislation governing the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) (see chapter 8). The British Broadcasting Corporation’s 2006 Royal Charter and Agreement does not require objectivity explicitly, although it appears in editorial guidelines around use of language in the discussion of terrorism (British Broadcasting Corporation 2011b).

Polish media workers embraced ‘a principle of objectivity’ in their 1995 Media Ethics Charter, ‘which means that the author depicts the reality independently of his/her own views, reports reliably different points of view’ (Polish Journalists’ Association (SDP), et al. 1995). The term also appears in South Africa, where the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act 153 of 1993 (as amended in 2002) states in its regulations for Party Election Broadcasts and Political Advertisements 7.3. ‘Every broadcaster who transmits news or current affairs programmes in respect of the elections shall do so in an impartial and objective manner and in a manner which treats all parties fairly’. It has nevertheless attracted controversy for the way it is perceived to be linked to Western, liberal views of media freedom, and also because of the way it was used to discredit reporting by black journalists in the apartheid years (see Mazwai 2002; BBC Monitoring Africa 2003; Harber 2003).

Allan suggests that the meaning of concepts such as ‘objectivity’ and ‘impartiality’ are historically specific. Accordingly, ‘It follows that each concept … will continue to evolve as the constellation of these forces changes across the public sphere’. Indeed, Allan provocatively suggests that with the rise of reality TV and ‘infotainment’ programming, ‘the end of “objectivity” and “impartiality” as the guiding principles of an ethic of public service may soon be in sight’ (1997: 319; see also Turner 1996). Iggers suggests, however, that an ‘obituary for objectivity may be premature’ (1998: 91). Before we consign objectivity to the code of ethics graveyard, we should note the way that other terms, perhaps more suited to the legal climate of the day, such as impartiality, work alongside the norm. Indeed, Geneva Overholser notes that ethical concepts such as accountability are increasing in importance (2006: 11). Such terms can either work to bolster the objectivity norm, or work as the regulatory ‘face’ of the norm.

Starting points

More than most topics, the study of objectivity in journalism is influenced by one’s starting point. These are, indeed, abundant. You can start with the philosophy, or newsroom practice. You can start with bias, or ‘just the facts’. You can focus on the innovations of editors in a ‘great man’ approach to history, or focus on social processes. You can look at the topic from the perspective of the editors and publishers, or through the experience of the reporter. You can focus on great metropolitan papers in New York, or train your eye towards papers in smaller cities and towns. You can start with the formidable scholarship in the area, or follow the cut and thrust of professional debates. The different ways into the topic can be bewildering.

Indeed, the different chapters of this book represent different ways of entering into the topic of objectivity in journalism. Some focus on history, others philosophy, or ethics. The reader is open to engage with the chapters in the sequence of their choice. So, for example, some readers may choose to begin with the chapters on the objections and defences to objectivity, before considering the history in detail. Others will benefit from having a deeper historical background before considering the other chapters.

One starting point that I shall decline at the outset is any simplistic binary of objectivity and subjectivity. Talking about objectivity in journalism usually leads to a discussion of subjectivity. Turning to subjectivity is, in some respects, a good idea. It raises issues of direct relevance to objectivity: neutrality, observation, perception and experience. However, it can restrict discussion by placing objectivity and subjectivity in too neat and static an opposition, leading to the seemingly inevitable conclusion that objectivity is impossible because we are all subjective and biased. What can disappear from view are more complex ways of approaching the concept of journalistic objectivity: its origins and histories, the philosophies and institutions behind it, its relationship to practice (see Nolan & Marjoribanks 2006).

Another starting point that I am mindful of is the concept of objectivity itself. This book has a clear focus on objectivity in journalism, but the fact is that objectivity ‘in general’ is a powerful cultural idea, one that has its roots in the foundations of Western science and the enlightenment. Indeed, the precise meaning of this broader idea of objectivity is still being debated. Objectivity as an idea has a wide-ranging influence across a number of different areas, philosophy, science (Daston & Galison 2007), law (Kramer 2007), history (Novick 1988), and of course journalism. The characterization of objectivity as a form of ‘knowledge that bears no trace of the knower’, a kind of ‘blind sight, seeing without inference, interpretation, or intelligence’ (Daston & Galison 2007: 17) will describe for many readers its main features.

Yet, close inspection of the nature of objectivity in specific contexts can yield important insights. It is interesting to note that in the seventeenth century the terms ‘objectivity and ‘subjectivity’ in fact had the opposite meaning. ‘“Objective” referred to things as they are presented to consciousness, whereas “subjective” referred to things in themselves’ (Daston & Galison 2007: 29). As Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison show in their study of scientific objectivity, the description of objectivity as ‘blind sight’ may capture objectivity as a form of perception but misses something: namely that objectivity is also an ‘ethic’, one dedicated to preserving the ‘artifact or variation that would have been erased in the name of truth’. Blind sight is not, therefore, an end in itself, but a way to attend to detail and the character of the object. As an ‘epistemic virtue’, to use their term, objectivity as a form of knowledge is not the same as truth or certainty, but an ethic of study itself, a safeguard against false assumptions and filters, affirming values such as truth and variation, binding the conduct of the scientist.

If ‘classic’ scientific objectivity aspires to a knowledge ‘unmarked by prejudice or skill, fantasy or judgement, wishing or striving’ (Daston & Galison 2007: 17), objectivity in journalism finds a different ground, producing variants of objectivity focused on facts of public interest, the ‘story’, the separation of fact from opinion, or at other times focusing on political neutrality. Underpinning these are precepts about democratic discourse, and the public interest. Any study of journalistic objectivity should strive to look at what makes these forms of objectivity distinctive and unique.

Objectivity in journalism can be a difficult concept to grasp not just because of the long history of objectivity, but also because it is closely linked to others such as bias and impartiality. In what follows I trace out the particular identity and development of objectivity in journalism beyond what has been dubbed the objectivity–bias ‘paradigm’ (Hackett 1984). Objectivity is very commonly raised in discussions of bias and balance, but not always closely examined in its own terms. Bias and balance are, as Guy Starkey insists, ‘mutually exclusive’ terms. ‘Put simplistically, balance is the absence of bias, and bias is the absence of balance’ (2007: xvi). Balance requires objectivity. ‘Being objective means not placing undue emphasis on one part of a representation, in order to distort it, for whatever motive’ (Starkey 2007: xvi). Bias is conventionally seen as inimical to objectivity – although objectivity has itself been seen as biased (Glasser 1992; McQuail 1992: 191). However, this matrix represents a somewhat one dimensional view of objectivity, which can be explored in relation to procedures of selection, and presentation of news, as well as a norm of ethical behaviour and professional ideology. Bias and balance are arguably not mutually exclusive from the point of view of media practice, where the work of relating facts and the statement of views of different parties is part of the same procedure (see Iggers 1998: 93). Following Robert A. Hackett this book seeks to reach beyond the bias ‘paradigm’ and make objectivity itself the object of investigation (1984: 253).

This introduction to journalistic objectivity tries to summarize a range of arguments and perspectives from what has become an expansive, but also very fascinating and rewarding area of study. Readers of this book may find it unusual that, although it draws on critical theory, it does not simply denounce objectivity as impossible. Although I do not deny that critical theory can offer a position from which to legitimately object to objectivity – and, indeed, I discuss numerous critiques of objectivity in what follows – my main purpose is to historicize and contextualize objectivity in journalism through discussion of key texts and debates. In doing so, I have attempted to not only give greater perspective to objectivity but also to the critique of this concept and practice in order to highlight gaps or unresolved issues. I also look at some of the ways objectivity is being defended and reinvented. What I try to show is that objectivity in journalism is not simply a philosophy that can be denounced or secured. It defines or actualizes ways of knowing that have impact in the world, influence the nature of reporting, and shape the professional underpinnings of journalism. In each case, objectivity is constructed or constituted in different ways, opening up (or closing down as the case may be) different possibilities for media practice.

Note on terminology: Because objectivity operates as a concept in history, literature, law, and the social sciences as well, I refer to journalistic objectivity. I use this concept, rather than the idea of ‘objective reporting’, firstly because the idea of reporting has a history of its own, and secondly because questions of objectivity extend beyond a particular approach to reporting.

1

Why and when did journalistic objectivity arise?

Perhaps no question is as central to an understanding of objectivity in journalism than that of its origins. Objectivity in journalism cannot be traced to a single ‘magic moment’ (Schudson 2001: 167). Media historians have put ‘great man’ versions of history into disrepute, questioning the fetish of singular origins (Winston 1999). Nevertheless, ‘why and when did objectivity arise?’ remains an essential context question without which our understanding of objectivity in journalism will lack a link to history and culture. However, the question of origins is a challenging one, both on the level of the factors driving the development of objectivity and also the dating of objectivity. This chapter teases out the debates around these two core issues.

What follows draws extensively on the work of James W. Carey, Michael Schudson and Daniel Schiller, as some of the foremost historians of objectivity in the US. But it also weaves into the discussion significant work by Stuart Allan in News Culture (2004); Stephen J. A. Ward in The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond (2004); Richard L. Kaplan in Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865–1920 (2002); Gerald J. Baldasty in The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century (1992); and Robert A. Hackett and Yuezhi Zhao in Sustaining Democracy? Journalism and the Politics of Objectivity (1998), all of which engage deeply, and often divergently, with the same research questions even if their projects are different.

The drivers of journalistic objectivity

Objectivity in journalism emerges out of a complex of factors. A full account of these factors immediately confronts the two key issues discussed in detail in the introduction, the difficulty of studying objectivity in journalism across cultures, and the treatment of the US case.

Several arguments have been put forward to explain the development of journalistic objectivity in the US and beyond. Building on Allan (2010: 28) and Michael Schudson (1978), the key arguments that will be discussed here have to do with professionalization, technology, commercialization and politics. None stands as a clear master-narrative and all of them have been contested, or subject to further work. These arguments work in quite general, deterministic and abstract ways; and in that sense they have limitations. Nevertheless, they remain useful in forming a broader picture of the different forces at work in the development of objectivity in journalism.

While my focus in the discussion that follows will be on the US case, which has been explored in depth by media historians, each of these ‘drivers’ point to broader research trajectories that can be drawn on to open up wider analysis of objectivity in journalism, regardless of national context. It should be stressed I am not advocating a point of view that objectivity was an ‘inevitable outcome’ of any of these particular forces (Schudson & Anderson 2009: 92). Rather, surveying the different arguments allows us to engage with the complex forces influencing journalistic objectivity, and to explore their interaction.

The professionalization argument