Journalism as a Conversation

Few subjects arouse more attention in American journalism than objectivity. It’s also easily the most misunderstood, and journalists haven’t necessarily done a great job demystifying the thing.

The New York Times threw a spotlight on objectivity this weekend with a thoughtful column from its new reader representative Public Editor Arthur Brisbane. Though the column applies to shifting standards and expectations at NYT, it could well apply to mainstream news in the U.S.

Back in colonial America at the beginnings of the press, news was viciously partisan, sometimes inflammatory and patron-supported to the bone. You’d be tossed out of the local pub on your ass if you feigned objectivity, and make no mistake: the pub was the town square of all news. We have Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook where we talk about the news. They had pub crawls, with beer, booze, brawls and old-fashioned face-to-face. That was the context. Sometimes I long for those days. 

With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, news got cleaned up for economic reasons. First, it went mass, thanks to technological advances and the railroads. Now national advertisers had a way to reach ginormous audiences and make ginormous profits. And when you’re writing and photographing and cartooning for a mass audience, you’re kind of aiming for the lowest common denominator, stuff that might appeal to everyone anywhere.

You all probably know this. What few people talk about is the scientific revolution that coincided with this period, especially in the U.S. Love of all things scientificy swept across America, buoyed by Pragmatism, the only philosophical movement the states ever produced and the only one journalists really embraced.

Pragmatists were just that: practical, feet-on-your-ground, no-nonsense, cut-the-bullshit-and-give-me-the-facts practitioners of life. Leave your opinionating at the door and tell me what you know to be true, not what you surmise in your arm-chair philosophizing. If I want impressions, I’ll go to Europe and listen to people in frilly shirts who pretend to know more than they do and blah, blah, blah their way through the day.* 

Objectivity was the rule not just for practicing science but for practicing journalism. But what does that mean? It means journalists, like scientists, pursued a practice of fact-seeking, verification and data collection. You don’t just throw shit out there because you think it might be true. You get off your ass and do the hard work of gathering information to get to the bottom of a thing.

In other words, objectivity refers to a practice of information-gathering, not to an assertion that humans are objective automatons. That scientificy practice is your recognition you are a creature of bias, and the best you can do is follow systematic, transparent procedures that help you get to truth with a small “t.” It’s the cornerstone of empirical science and remains the cornerstone of mainstream American journalism. 

Is it a perfect process? Hell no. Has it done some good over the past 100 years? I think so. But as we argue about its value in society, we too often confuse objective practice/method with the ridiculous notion of objective humans. Not the same — and very, very, very different arguments. 

To Arthur Brisbane and others trying to tease this stuff apart, I salute you. For my money, you — we — can have it all. You can have your news brought to you through systematic processes that can still be deeply analytical and, above all, transparent to the core. Brisbane reminds us of the importance of simply labeling and displaying our journalism — Op-Ed, news analysis, straight reportage, etc. — properly and explaining those terms. 

And that’s the trick: Can we as journalists ever get comfortable in the share-all Internet Age explaining how we make the sausage, processes laid out for all? Master that and some of these debates might disappear.

* See Altschull’s “From Milton to McLuhan: The Ideas Behind American Journalism” for a rousing analysis. And, yes, Europeans don’t have a lock on frilly shirts: Just ask Seinfeld. Better yet, check my closet. This gal’s got poof.