I was so interested last night when we touched on Objectivity that I went home in search of more answers. From the proseminar class last year I remembered the chapter on objectivity and have this to offer you all...
“Originally, it was not the journalist who was imagined to be objective. It was his or her method. Today, however, in part because journalists have failed to articulate what they are doing, our contemporary understanding of objectivity is mostly confusion.”
This offered A LOT of insight for me and also made me think..is the system the problem or our understanding of the system? I would have to say the latter.
If everyone had the "correct" understanding of the relationship between objectivity/journalism, maybe (as we joked in class) we would be able to march in a protest!
3 comments:
Also- Just to site. This is from Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel "The Elements of Journalism" Chapter 2
I don't know that it's something you can empirically define. The concept of objectivity is so relative to so, so many different situations and context within those situations.
There will always be cries of bias in the news, no matter how much of an effort a journalist or news organization puts into remaining objective. It's more the sensitive reception we receive rather than our presentation.
The quote about objectivity of the method is a great one. I think we have come to expect the unattainable: how can someone form an opinion but at the same time, be totally objective? Often, journalists research topics and the end result is a particular lean to one side of the argument or the other.
Forming an opinion only after weighing the different sides of the issue and getting the viewpoint of many different individuals is, in my opinion, the best application of objectivity.
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