Objective Journalism is a “Fantasy”

I didn’t say it. Someone much more of an authority on the subject of journalism said it. In defending the doctoring of the most famous photo from World War II, “Managing Editor Richard Stengel said the cover art was part of the publication’s global warming advocacy…”

He continued:

Stengel defied the traditional notion that journalists should be unbiased. “I didn’t go to journalism school,” Stengel said. “But this notion that journalism is objective, or must be objective is something that has always bothered me – because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don’t know that there is as such a thing as objectivity.”

Stengel supported his claim by stating the role of journalists is not to ask questions, but answer them.

So, newspapers are not there to ask questions, but to answer them. There is a word for that.

He went on to say that journalists just make up standards as they go along.

“I don’t even know what rules there have been all along in journalism,” Stengel said. “There are rules we kind of observed by tradition, but it’s not like you know the legal code or the being a doctor with the way you treat people. We sort of make it up as we go along and I think that is what will continue to happen.”

Stengel’s position ignores principles set down in the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. The “standards of practice” that Stengel’s standpoint might have violated include:

• Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.
• Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.
• Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
• Admit mistakes and correct them promptly.

Hat Tip: BMI and Free Republic