Situational Definition
John Eligon, a pulitzer prize winning journalist who writes for the New York Times, spoke at the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications Foster-Foreman distinguished writers series. I would like to look at the ethical issues that come with trying to report objectively.
First I will analyze the issue of of reporting objectively, and second I will analyze the issue of reporting while being profiled or discriminated against.
Analysis
Most, if not all, journalists can agree that it is important to remain objective. Remaining as impartial as possible is the only way to show the truth and to build trust in your readership. But is it truly possible to be objective? An article by Carrie Figdor published by the Journal of Mass Media Ethics raises the argument from an earlier article that states that one can never really report the news objectively.
“All observations are subjective. Writers freed of artificial objectivity can try to determine the whole truth about their subject and then tell it whole to the world. Their “objective” counterparts have to sort their subjective observations into two arbitrary piles: truths that are objective as well, and truths that are just an opinion. (Kinsley, 2006)” This quote argues the idea that everyone sees the world from their own unique perspective and therefore one cannot be truly objective. Of course there are somethings that are simply fact and no lack of objectivity can change that. As Figdor counters, E=MC^2 was not Einstein’s opinion. So as long as there are innate truths, there can be objective reporting.
“There may always be difficulties, and there is much work to be done to eliminate the influence of personal values and nonconscious biases of various kinds, but it does not follow that every news story is tainted by personal bias,” (Figdor 2010).
To sum up the article, it is possible to report objectively despite doubts some may have. Eligon is African American and has spent much of his career covering racism and race relations. He wrote an article for the New York Times where he examined racism in one of America’s most diverse towns, Vallejo, CA. The article talked about how even though at times it seems like the entire country is divided, this town where there are nearly equal numbers of Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, people can coexist and not have race on their minds.
He later wrote an opinion piece for the Times in which he discusses a 60 year-old white man he interviewed who was not shy about his racial biases toward the people of the town or towards Eligon. “He said that most of the “gangbangers” in Vallejo were people of color, and he thought that I, a black man, was up to no good when he first saw me,” (Eligon).
I think everyone is subjected to at least some biases that they have about the world. I think because of that, the best journalists can really do is try their best to be objective and as mentioned in the Figdor article, objective journalism is entirely possible.
Conclusion
While I’m not sure that I learned anything new, this is the first time that I ever considered the possibility that it might not be possible to report objectively. It was always something I assumed to be true and something that I still think is true, but never something that I thought about.
I think it was useful to look at the idea of objective reporting through the lense of Eligon’s career. Race isn’t something I normally associate with reporting, but when I do it is in the context that the race of someone in a story might affect the way that they are portrayed. I never considered that the race of the reporter could affect the way that they report.
References
Eligon, John. “Does Race Matter in America’s Most Diverse ZIP Codes?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/us/does-race-matter-in-americas-most-diverse-zip-codes.html?module=inline.
Eligon, John. “’Nothing Against You’: For a Black Man Covering Race, the Story Is Never Far From Home.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Nov. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/us/insider-vallejo-diverse.html
Figdor, Carrie. “WebAccess.” Penn State WebAccess Secure Login: Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 2010, www-tandfonline-com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1080/08900521003638383?needAccess=true.