Objective Journalism?

Whatever happened to objective journalism? Did it actually ever exist, or is it one of those ideas everyone dreams about but no one has achieved. The days of Walter Cronkite are past. His no nonsense approach to the new was a thing of legend. Kind of like Joe Friday on the show Dragnet, from the 60s. “Just the facts ma'am.” At least that's how I remember him, viewed through the rose colored glasses of the past and childhood.

Today's journalists seem to be more agenda driven. Not only in presentation and wording, but in leading their readers and watchers to the “proper” conclusions. They take a news item, package it up with the right questions and words and serve it up on a silver platter, conclusions included.

Take the police officer shooting the dog in Chicago, for example. I read or watched at least 20 reports on that incident. Few of the reports stated the dog was running toward the officer. That's a fairly important fact. Many of them were full of conjecture and innuendo and woefully short on fact. Peaceful and quiet were prevalent descriptions. Most of them include the words "for no apparent reason."

Instead they draw a picture with their words and leave you the image of a crazed officer that shot the dog just because. They leave you the impression of children in imminent danger because their school was in the neighborhood. This poor pitiful puppy shot by the bad dangerous police officer. Somehow I doubt that was the case. The question is will we ever know the whole truth.

This is how one “reporter” opened his piece. “Pity the friendly dog who mistakenly chooses to trot up to a person packing a gun.” That line was just below a picture of a dog wrapped in a blanket. This reporter didn't even bother to try to sway your opinion, he just stated his. That one line puts him on the level of Glenn Beck and Shawn Hannity, though at least they are honest enough to not call themselves reporters.

I did find a couple of honest reporters. This one could be used as an example of good journalism:

“ CHICAGO (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - A family is suing the Chicago Police Department after they say a police officer shot their dog twice. The officer fired at the miniature bull terrier named Colonel, while writing a parking ticket to the dog's owner. A neighbor told the owner he was getting a ticket, and when he came outside, the dog followed and ran toward the officer. That's when the officer shot the dog. The owner says the dog wasn't violent, just wagging his tail. He was issued a citation for the dog being unleashed. The dog is expected to survive. Police are investigating the shooting.”

Chock full of facts and notably short on opinion. Maybe there is hope after all.

This piece of drivel is an opinion. I won't even claim it's the right opinion, just that it's mine.

Allen

I've said it a ton of times, journalism sucks in its current state because people aren't willing to pay for it.

When I graduated with Journalism degree in Dec 2005, a starting reporter's pay at the Tulsa World was like $24,000 a year and you don't just get to work 8-5 M-F.

Why would I go to college, rack up student loans to go make $10/hr?

In reply to Toyman01:

I think you nailed it.

I have always held this logic...
Have you ever been in the paper? Could be a story about you directly or something you were closely related to.
Have you noticed that in that one article about you that somethings or a detail was not quite accurate or exactly right?
Now, expand that logic to every story.
Everything you read is just a little wrong or inaccurate.

Also from being in Journalism school the vast majority of kids go to that major because they have an agenda.

I went to school for journalism as well and this is basically why I got out before I completed it and ended up back in engineering.

The departure from strictly facts based journalism started when networks and publishers started caring more about advertiser revenue than adhering to the old school code of who, what, where, when, why and how.

I still remember well my journalism basics class on how to write a news story which is pretty much a simple formula that fit well into my engineer-oriented mind. There is still some amount of opinion involved by how the writer prioritizes the information, but for the most part it should be minimal.

journalism today is still objective- as long as you agree with what the story is saying. if you don't agree with it, then it's biased.

We haven't mostly unbiased reporting since the early 60's, and then it was fairly rare.

When most young people get their news from comedians you know things are screwed up.

Actually, Uncle Walter had something to do with that. He started editorializing during the Viet Nam war.

JohnRW1621 wrote: Everything you read is just a little wrong or inaccurate.

This. The more you know about a subject, the less happy you tend to be with how it is covered.

I think that the news should be reported straight, just the facts, without any color commentary to tell me why I am supposed to care or why this matters.

If a journalist feels the need to present their opinion/bias, they can go make a biased indie documentary like all their buddies are doing. Roger Ebert calls them "op-umentaries" or "prop-umentaries"

It's always been that way. Even Cronkite was slanted...it's just back then it was watered down and most outlets were on the same page. The advent of 24 hour news channels is what sped everything up...and in the early '90's is the time i remember a more in your face biased starting to take place.

I spent many years in TV and advertising so i got a bit of it first hand, but to think this is something new is inaccurate. It's just on steroids now and any pretense of real news is gone. If you want real news about the US today, the UK seems to be the place to get....or some from a select group of bloggers.

Our news situation is a sad mess.

Toyman01 wrote: Whatever happened to objective journalism? Did it actually ever exist, or is it one of those ideas everyone dreams about but no one has achieved.

I would say No, it has never really existed. Ever gone back and read any pieces of reporting from the early 20th century? Frequently very slanted.

I'd say there are individuals (like the aforementioned Walter Cronkite) who are better at being objective journalists, but that there has never been a time when journalism as a whole was truly objective.

That said... television news tends to be a lot more slanted and as technology makes it easier to report directly to individuals there has been a move to shifting away from universal reporting that shied away from touchy subjects in order to avoid alienating any potential readers towards journalism slanted towards specific groups with a shared world view.

z31maniac wrote: I've said it a ton of times, journalism sucks in its current state because people aren't willing to pay for it. When I graduated with Journalism degree in Dec 2005, a starting reporter's pay at the Tulsa World was like $24,000 a year and you don't just get to work 8-5 M-F. Why would I go to college, rack up student loans to go make $10/hr?

I had the same experience.

Now I'm in marketing.

carguy123 wrote: We haven't mostly unbiased reporting since the early 60's, and then it was fairly rare. When most young people get their news from comedians you know things are screwed up.

South Park is the most accurate news source I have ever seen.

Try this, watch a different news channel every day, pay attention to the big story overlap coverage, stuff rarely lines up, what little does are the facts.

Duke wrote: Actually, Uncle Walter had something to do with that. He started editorializing during the Viet Nam war.

I seem remember his editorials, but they always seemed to come at the end of the news program and were separate from it. You had no doubt he was voicing his opinion. That line seems to be getting more blurred as time goes by.

JohnRW1621 wrote: Everything you read is just a little wrong or inaccurate.

I'd amend that to "Everything you read is just a little wrong, inaccurate, imcomplete, or combinations thereof."

This is exactly why I only get the news here, on GRM, from you guys.

The way I figure it, if its something worthwhile enough that one of you think it should be posted, then I should probably click and at least see what it's about. Sure, things posted here contain elements of opinion and/or bias sometimes, but I expect that since its presented on a personal level.

There never has been such a thing as objective journalism. It's a fallacy. Everyone has an agenda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

Toyman01 wrote:

Duke wrote: Actually, Uncle Walter had something to do with that. He started editorializing during the Viet Nam war.

I seem remember his editorials, but they always seemed to come at the end of the news program and were separate from it. You had no doubt he was voicing his opinion. That line seems to be getting more blurred as time goes by.

Cronkite came across as pretty even-keeled, right up until he claimed the Vietnamese was "lost" in the middle of a report. That started the obvious slide towards darkness.

Then, we had Watergate; a scandal perpetrated by an unpopular President (and his administration) that was reviled, especially by "liberals". When Woodward and Bernstein (primarily) broke the story, they were regarded as heroes and journalism schools were flooded with wannabe's hoping to do their part in bringing down "the man". There wasn't and still isn't much balance in the views of those who teach the craft.

The 24-hour news cycle was the death knell. Broadcasters scrambled to fill air-time, finding anyone with a modicum of subject knowledge and foisting them as experts. Now, we get bombarded by analysis by people with a clear agenda.

But I really rue the decision by ABC to bring in Roone Arledge and update their news division. They chose to bring more "entertainment" to the evening news and used the guy who made the Wide World of Sports profitable. I hate those guys.

I remember news programs before the Reagan administration repealed the "Fairness Doctrine" in the mid-late 80's it was very different with equal time devoted to both sides of the issue.

I had a very conservative college professor in 92 that claimed it was going to destroy media news and lead to distortion of the facts. He seems to have been right on the money.

I wouldn't be too quick to hold the BBC up as paragons of unbiased virtue, either. Anything American that is different from how they do it over there is always held up as somewhat suspicious or at least questionable.

petegossett wrote: This is exactly why I only get the news here, on GRM, from you guys. The way I figure it, if its something worthwhile enough that one of you think it should be posted, then I should probably click and at least see what it's about. Sure, things posted here contain elements of opinion and/or bias sometimes, but I expect that since its presented on a personal level.

Still... the news tends to bring out emotions and strong opinions... and we end up with:

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/political-discussions-not-welcome/54483/page1/

JohnRW1621 wrote: I have always held this logic... Have you ever been in the paper? Could be a story about you directly or something you were closely related to. Have you noticed that in that one article about you that somethings or a detail was not quite accurate or exactly right? Now, expand that logic to every story. Everything you read is just a little wrong or inaccurate.

We had a lady in our church get killed by a drunk driver this past summer. I was amazed at how many details were wrong in the paper and local news reports. Then I wondered how many other stories had the same problem.

You state an important fact.

So, that begs the question, who is to blame? Us for accepting what is foisted off on us as news? News outlets for accepting and encouraging biased opinion pieces to increase ratings? Journalism schools for not teaching journalism?

Is there any way to encourage reporters to report or do we have to keep wading through countless sources to garner the few nuggets of fact. I know my philosophy bleeds through everything I write, so how can I expect someone else to be better than me?

I was listening to the news on talk radio the other day. The leading story was Lindsay Lohan punching some chick in the face and getting arrested again. Why is that a leading national news story? Why is the Egyptian people rioting in the streets against their new president almost a foot note? I get the feeling that the general public is willing to believe what they are told to believe. They are more interested in who Baby Fatso is than anything that actually impacts their lives and livelihood. Sensationalism is king at the expense of news.

Us for accepting it.