Objecting to Objectivity

Brent Cunningham brings up some interesting points in the article "Re-thinking Objectivity." In today's world of journalism, it seems that objectivity, or "fairness" has been micromanaged to the point that as long as both sides are equally represented, the reporter has done his or her job. Cunningham says that today's journalists have become "passive recipients" of news, often using official sources as a crutch in place of digging up further information, and personally, I agree with him. This is why the media has come under fire in recent years. We have let the public down by being too agreeable, too ready to listen to the current administration, and too "objective".

The constant pursuit of objectivity, this desire to present fair, balanced, and most of all unbiased news, can, at least in some cases, is by far the biggest disservice the press had ever done to the public, besides flat out lying. How can we question authority if we are supposed to be completely objective? How can we say that that "this is wrong" without being biased? The truth is, we can't. And by not questioning, by not inserting some type of analysis or bias, we become lapdogs for the government, for the military, for what ever authoritative power we are gathering the news from. Of 414 television broadcast stories down by ABC, NBC and CBS, "all but thirty-four originated at the White House, Pentagon, and State Department." And most of the stories were likely reported without question, without resistance, without a thorough explanation or understanding passed on to the public. Very few journalists, stations and newspapers objected, and instead were objective, silents observers - spreaders of propaganda.

That's not our role. We are to seek truth and report it, to tell people what's important for them to know, even if that means we have to take sides. Instead, we helped manipulate the public. And here we are, five years later, dug so deep into two wars that very few people still support, now that we finally know the reasoning behind them. That's the result of our so-called objectivity. And quite frankly, that's just wrong.