Objectivity is, and always has been, the wrong word to describe journalism ethics

Ben Lindner

benjamincharleslindner@gmail.com

"Objectivity" is a major buzzword in journalism. Everyone says they want it, but they think no one has it. A 2019 Gallup study showed that, since 2007, Americans have thought the media as a whole was not objective, with there not being a single year since 2000 that more than 15 percent of people would describe themselves as having a "great deal" of trust in the media.

This distrust is split wildly by party, as a Knight Foundation poll from 2018 found that 60 percent of Republicans and just three percent of Democrats consider Fox News to be "objective", while only five percent of Republicans trust any other media organization.

The truth is, objectivity is extremely hard to actually achieve. Subjectivity is always going to be present because journalists are simply human. They will always be shaped by their gender, race, ideology or socioeconomic status. 

This might seem like a bad thing but it is actually something that should be further embraced.

Instead of avoiding these potential subjective biases, journalists should be clear about these things and use them to shape their writing. This will be able to provide context that other journalists might not be able to. 

Picture source: yesvedanta.com

The key is for different people to get the same platforms. One person does not need to be required to be entirely objective, but with multiple voices, one publication can achieve objectivity through them.

The current system allows for publications to lean to a particular side, when instead individual writers could lean each way and create relatively neutral publication.

This could also be done on the individual scale, where a single journalist uses their subjective starting viewpoint and supplements it with opposing viewpoints, rather than pretending they had no viewpoint the whole time

This is, of course, not to say that journalists should not work hard to report only the facts and to get all sides of the story as best they can on their own. However, expecting everyone to write from a presumed middle ground is disingenuous, not to mention it creates potential for a very homogeneous journalistic culture.

So, if "objectivity" is not the right word, what is? I would suggest something along the lines of "fully dimensional." This term successfully conveys the idea of well-rounded coverage of issues without attempting to maintain the pretense of "objectivity."

If journalists can accept and embrace their subjectivity rather than shy away from it, the field as a whole will benefit from it.