"Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but...." -Dennis Miller
Like everybody, there are quite a few things in this world which just annoy the hell out of me. I try not to voice these opinions for various reasons. I never want to hurt anyone's feelings, I appear bitter when I do, etc. Unfortunately, unless I voice my frustrations, they don't go away. The solution I've come up with, is this Rant & Roar section of my website. Every so often, I plan to vent my frustration, go on a rant and just plain roar about a certain topic that annoys me. I mean absolutely no offense to anyone in particular. This section is not an excuse for me to attack anyone. It's just me letting off some steam.
You can also check out my previous rants.
"Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice." - Society of Professional Journalists' Codes of Ethics
Many people would consider the above paragraph to be an idealistic, naive and unrealistic representation of the news media. Of course, everyone agrees that this is what the news media should be. Some might even consider it noble and admirable (if unrealistic) that some journalists actually view the news media in this light. These people will tell you that, unfortunately, the majority of journalists out there aren't on some sort of noble quest to seek the truth. Most journalists, they will warn, are doing whatever they can to sell papers. They easily allow their personal feelings and biases to seep into their stories. They care more about sensationalism and "getting a good story" than they do about truth or serving the public. They have no problem making up stories or blatantly lying to the public. This, they will tell you, is what the news media truly is.
It is my intention to show that many of the attacks made against journalists and the journalism profession in general are often unjustified and unfair. I feel the best method of doing this to deconstruct the attacks made against the news media. First, it is important to note that my intention is not to defend the media in general, but the news media in particular. The media as a whole doesn't particularly care about being unbiased. Fashion shows, for example, never claim to be honest or truthful. Likewise, I don't consider tabloids to be part of the News Media.
As a journalism student, I've heard the following arguments many times on many different occasions. I'd like to respond to each of them in turn.
1) It is impossible for journalists to be objective and unbiased since we all have our own views, ideas and biases. We can only examine the world through our own eyes. As a result, it is impossible to see the world objectively.
Philosophically speaking, this is true. Of course, philosophically speaking, it's also true that Renee Descartes was correct when he said that there could exist an "evil spirit, who is supremely powerful and intelligent, and does his utmost to deceive me.” This evil spirit could easily fool us by manipulating our senses. As a result, everything a reporter experiences could be a lie. How could we possibly report on any event if we have no way of knowing if our senses are deceived or not? Perhaps we're all in the Matrix? These metaphysical questions are interesting and may teach us more about the nature of humanity, but on a practical day-to-day level, they really don't make a difference. Of course it's impossible to be completely objective when reporting on an event. That's not relevant however. We don't need to be completely objective to report on events. If you re-examine the paragraph quoted from the Society of Professional Journalists' Codes of Ethics, you'll see that they don't make the claim that journalists should be objective. They say that "the duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues." That's all any of us can do. And, on a practical level, I think we can give unbiased coverage of events. If a car explodes killing four people, I can still report that with accuracy despite my human inability to be completely objective. This leads us to the second complaint...
2) Language itself is loaded. As a result, anything written will be biased in some fashion or another.
This one is a tricky. Is he a terrorist, or a freedom fighter? Is he a hero who fights an oppressive regime, or a murderer of innocent people? There seems to be no middle ground. There's doesn't seem to be any neutral wording that will suffice. Even if there were, would it be accurate? What if the person really is a freedom fighter or a terrorist? People throw these loaded terms around constantly, but because journalism is one of the only fields that even tries to be fair and even-handed to some degree, journalists are not afforded the same luxury. To try to be fair and even-handed when language itself is loaded is not an easy task. Mistakes are unavoidable. We're not infallible. No matter what terminology is used, someone will complain. Someone will cry "bias". An honest attempt at being fair is the only guide a journalist has. Journalists might not always succeed, and just like any other field, not everyone tries to do the right thing, but the fact that the field itself is build upon a foundation of truth and fairness says a lot. How many other fields can make that claim? If people found out that a marketing company put out false information to increase sales of a product, would people react with the same outrage that they react to unethical news reporting? It seems doubtful. People expect people in marketing to lie. People expect politicians to lie. People don't usually expect journalists to lie. They expect journalists to be cold hearted, insensitive and cruel, but they don't expect journalists to lie. Some people might claim that they do, but they still watch and/or read the news for information on current events. They still expect a level of truth that they don't expect with commercials, fashion shows, and Hollywood movies. If the news media was so full of liars, cheats and manipulators, then why don't people view the news media as a whole the same way they view tabloids? The reason people notice when a reporter is caught lying or making stories up is because it is a small minority of reporters that do this.
3) Journalism is a business like any other. Selling papers is a journalist's primary concern, the truth is secondary.
This may be true of newspapers, but not journalists. It is not the job of a journalist to sell papers. It is the marketing department's job to sell papers. People who read newspapers are looking for honest reports of world events. This is what journalists are attempting to provide. It is true that journalists try to write stories in a way that engages the reader and tries to get them interested in the story. This kind of writing does not stand in opposition to honest reporting however. The business of journalism is based on truth. Without it, the business would fail.
4) Journalists pick and choose which events are worth reporting and which aren't. This means that "news worthy events" are arbitrarily chosen by reporters who just want certain things reported on and not others.
I'm not quite sure what it is people want reporters to do. It's obviously impossible to report on everything everywhere. Would people be happy if we just put a camera in every room of every house on the planet and broadcast it 24/7? Short of that, there is no way to report on every event. The fact is, aside from the obvious intrusion of privacy, people only care about certain kinds of events. For example, if I published a story about Bob from Maryland buying grapes at the fruit store, would people really care? What if, at the same time, I had a story about toxic waste spilling into your city's water supply?. Which story would you rather read about? What if I put in Bob's story, but not the story about the contaminated water supply? Even though nothing out of the ordinary actually happened to Bob, who am I to say that your contaminated water supply is more "news worthy" than Bob's buying of fruit? They are, after all, both events. It is true that journalists need to decide which stories are reported on and which ones aren't.. Does that mean that the decision is arbitrary? No. Some stories are of more interest to the public than others. For example, more people would be concerned about a car accident in their neighborhood than they would be about a car accident in a neighborhood on the other side of the country. Does that mean the car accident on the other side of the country is any less tragic? No. However, a car accident in our city has a greater chance of impacting and effecting our lives. Someone we know could have been in the car accident. It could have been in an area we know well. The cause of the accident could have been related to the environment and not the driver. If that's the case, perhaps that area of the city needs avoiding. What are the repercussions of this accident on traffic? Now, things get tricky when large events happen outside of our city or neighborhood. An accident in Mexico is not likely to make news here, because it's not as relevant to people here as a Montreal related story would be. But what if 100 people were killed in this accident? What about 1,000? 100,000? The greater the tragedy, the more likely it is to be covered by our papers. So, is a single murder here worth 10 or 100 murders in Mexico when it comes to coverage? This is not an easy question to answer. Journalists are put in a difficult position and need to decide, often only within a few hours, which stories are put where. Sometimes people make bad decisions, and sometimes there is no real "correct" answer. Does this mean that news events are arbitrarily chosen? No. This only shows how difficult a journalist's job truly is.
Recent world events have polarized people's views in an extreme way. You are either a blood-thirsty racist who supports war on Iraq, or a traitor who supports pure evil. You either support the oppression of the Palestinian people, or you support terrorism. With such extreme views dominating the hearts and minds of many people, it is becoming more and more difficult for people to accept views that don't match their own. As such, any news report which doesn't parrot exactly what a person thinks should be said, is considered shabby journalism or biased reporting. Journalists, of course, aren't immune to having polarized beliefs themselves. Shabby journalism and biased reporting does indeed exist. This does not mean that such cases dominate the profession. Often, it is the personal bias of the reader that is the cause of complaints and angry remarks, not the bias of the journalist.
I always considered the News Media to be like Democracy. It may have some problems, some might even be serious, but it's still the best system we have. People complain about the News Media, but what would they prefer instead? What would be a better source of information? Would they prefer to get their information from hearsay? Rumor? Perhaps they'd prefer a news media which is government controlled? Journalism is not without it's problems. Like all fields, it has its charlatans and liars. It has biased reporters writing biased stories. Despite this however, journalism is still the only source of information that actually tries to be even-handed and honest. And to a large extend, even with the difficulties that face journalists, they manage to be. So, the next time you are angry with a reporter or a story, don't generalize that to the entire News Media. And, if you consider a story biased, look at your own biases before targeting the reporter's.
Check out some of my previous rants
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