STOP! You're being you.

Hey there, Journalist. Whatcha doin?

Being you? Oh, that's not cool, actually.

Stop, drop everything.

Hey there, Journalist. We love your work, we'd love for you to be part of our paper, part of our broadcast - but you're just too...just too you.

We are all biased by our individual experiences and personality. It's what makes us unique; it's what makes us human. But as journalists, we are asked to ignore everything we know, everything we are to write an objective story.

Impossible - at least to GenY. The future of journalism is not objective because GenY can't be objective. GenY has an insatiable desire for being individualistic - for being unique.

Evan Carmichael posted an article about the traits of GenY and how to market to the 18-30 year-olds that comprise GenY. He said the number one trait one needs to consider is their "thriftiness," the need to find items that speak about their character.

http://www.evancarmichael.com/Public-Relations/4064/6-Traits-of-GenY-Consumers-and-How-You-Can-Market-To-Them.html

Look around the classroom today - how many people have the same style? Not many because we love to be unique.

Racism or stereotyping is an extreme form of bias, and a Dartmouth study found that it happens subconsciously. It happens without people even being able to know, making it impossible to overcome.

http://www.expertmagazine.com/artman/publish/article_393.shtml

However, racism is not the only form of bias, and any form can happen automatically, thus making it impossible to account for and overcome.

Some reporters and journalists believe that objectivity in journalism is not dead, and that there is still a place for. However, most believe that the truly objective reporter is rare, incredibly...incredibly rare.

Here at PBS, professional journalists weigh in on the issue.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/tags/objective.html

But the question still remains: can one be truly objective? Sure, if you erase all their memories. But, unless our society is 1984, we'll never be truly objective.


-Robert Doll