Comments on: Truth-seeking professionals and the public: Why is journalism unique?

By: Truth-seeking professionals and the public: Why is journalism unique? « J-School: Educating Independent Journalists

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:26:42 +0000

[...] journalistic professionalism that demands the monk-like embrace of personal rectitude? … [Read More at the Nieman [...]

By: Tweetlinks, 9-29-09 [A Blog Around The Clock] « Technology Blogs

Tweetlinks, 9-29-09 [A Blog Around The Clock] « Technology Blogs — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:04:15 +0000

[...] Truth-seeking professionals and the public: Why is journalism unique? – why are academics/scientists given freedom, but journalists asked to relinquish it? [...]

By: Gary Scott

Gary Scott — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:55:58 +0000

I agree with Howard Weaver’s framing the issue and would add that journalists not only want to be perceived by the audience as fair but also by the people they report on. These people want to know they’re going to get a fair shake when they agree to speak to a reporter (journalists cannot compel people to talk to them). If I tweet that everyone who supports the war in Iraq is an idiot, what do I do when I’m supposed to cover the funeral of a dead soldier? If my editor’s Facebook page declares his opposition to gay marriage, what kind of access will I have to proponents? Will they speak to me honestly, or will they speak to me in a defensive way, holding certain important facts back? If they hold back, the readers are the ones who miss out.

Of course, one could say that it’s dishonest to withhold these opinions from the readers in the first place, and in some cases it is. But even if perfect fairness isn’t possible, that doesn’t make the effort pointless. Striving to be fair can open the door to more views, let people speak more honestly and give readers a chance to hear multiple perspectives. And like a jury system – in which we ask people to refrain from broadcasting their views or rendering a judgment before they hear all the facts – we hope that newsrooms strive to present different sides while also making important distinctions and judgment calls. We also hope that layers of reporters and editors will weed out the biases of the individual, and that stated goals and standards will affect the way journalists approach their stories.

That being said, I’m all for advocacy journalism. I don’t think every newsroom needs to follow the Post’s example. Some newsrooms will not only allow their reporters and editors to blog and tweet and facebook their thoughts and opinions, they will encourage them to do so. They already do. The Internet world is big enough for all approaches. Demanding the Post subscribe to the doctrine of advocacy journalism is as silly as asking advocacy journalists to subscribe to the doctrine of the Post. Then let the readers decide.

By: Howard Weaver

Howard Weaver — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:37:17 +0000

P.S. to Alex: transparency does, I think, build credibility in today’s context.

I don’t know what your experience with the past 40 years was, but in mine, overt partisanship or publicly declared loyalties certainly would not have.

By: Howard Weaver

Howard Weaver — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:35:44 +0000

I signed to write the post Mike Hill left before I got here. (Damn, he always did seem to be a step or two ahead of me). It;s beter done, anyhow.

I want to start by saying I personally am firmly on the side of letting journalists tweet and post to their hearts’ content, and then holding them accountable for stupidity or harmful bias.

But I don’t think the issue is well-framed in Anderson’s post, which rests on a false equivalency.

The entirely well-meaning intention of holding journalists to a different code was built on establishing and maintaining credibility with their audiences – finding a visible demonstration of the fairness that was always a presumed necessity. There were not a large number of alternatives to the daily newspaper in most towns over the last 40 years, and it made the role of newspaper journalists different.

Times have changed. So be it. But you need to start any analysis with a clear understanding what it is that’s changing.

\-\/\/

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:48:17 +0000

The epistemology of journalism is just different. The belief is that by hiding information about reporters, an air of objectivity will be created. What’s interesting is the hypocrisy of this with journalists’ call for things like transparency in government. Why not have reporters be transparent about themselves? Transparency increases credibility, right?

By: Michael Hill

Michael Hill — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:36:44 +0000

Part of the distinction is institutional tradition: In journalism, it became standard to refrain from public engagement, so anyone who engages is assumed to have given up the quest for objectivity.
Some is speed. Academics are not judged instantly on the basis of that day’s publication. Their production is mulled and debated over time and it can thus be decided if they let their biases cloud their judgment. Journalists’ stories are judged instantly and can too easily be dismissed with, “Of course he wrote that, he’s a (fill in the blank).”
And some of the distinction does not exist. I imagine you know of some academics whose work you do not take that seriously because they are so out there politically that you just don’t trust their scholarship. To insure their credibility, academics have to be sure that their opinions follow their research (not the other way around). When it doesn’t, they are in trouble. I recall one such debate over C. Vann Woodward’s “The Strange Career of Jim Crow,” whether it was a work of serious scholarship or a polemic designed to show that history was behind the Civil Rights movement, whether it actually was or not.

By: Emily Culbertson

Emily Culbertson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:46:04 +0000

Thoughtful piece. I wonder less if this is less a “relinquishing some of the privileges of private citizenship” issue and more of a “keep our libel insurance from going through the roof” issue. To me, that’s the major difference between publishing a newspaper and teaching a class.