What’s interesting to me is that transparency isn’t really “new” at all – it’s an idea that had been lost but was intrinsic to the original meaning of objectivity when it arose in the American context in the 1920s, according to historians like Mindich and Kovach and Rosenstiel’s Elements of Journalism. The idea was not that the journalist him or herself could ever be objective/free of any personal feeling or belief- Freud, relativism, and other trends of the time made that increasingly seem naive – but that she would use an objective METHOD for testing and verifying information and then be transparent about that method so that others would know what to think. Much like the scientific method, albeit on deadline.

But the Web with its interactivity has made it all the more vital that journalists use transparency.

If you haven’t read it, Stephen Ward’s conception of “pragmatic objectivity” is the smartest explanation of having your cake and eating it too that I’ve ever seen. :)

Cheers,
Carrie Brown-Smith
@brizzyc

True enough. Bloggers (at least some of them) get this concept more than many traditional journalists. But I hope there are still some trad journos to get it before they die out.

Michael,

I agree that transparency also includes clueing the reader into the process of the story. But I do think transparency applies to the journalists themselves and isn’t all that obvious. Yes, it’s obvious that journalists have opinions. Not sure it’s obvious to readers what those opinions are.

Gina

(Thanks for the link, by the way.)
I think that’s what Craig Newmark was getting at when he said that “objectivity is the new transparency.”

Nice post.

I think you’re right on a lot of levels, and i think that the fact that the blogging community has already adopted what you’re advocating as a norm speaks to the power and pull of this.

I think of Michael Arrington and his recent “Scamville” series on TechCrunch about lead generation services that lock unsuspecting people into obscure monthly subscriptions to useless services and that are making $100s of millions of revenue for social gaming startups like Zynga. He was a man on a mission, and he didn’t hide it. I know I came to respect him more for it.

That’s the rub: what you’re describing and advocating is something that people in the blogosphere and the new crop of young, growing media companies are already doing. It is only the dinosaurs in rapidly shrinking newspaper land that cling to this old notion of objectivity über ales. I don’t know that you need to make the argument (although it’s fun) so much as sit and wait for time to kill off the news orgs that don’t get it.

-Matt

You’re right. I’m Catholic. Guilty as charged. However, I thought the meaning would be clear enough to anyone. Apologizes if it wasn’t.

Gina