Objectivity in Journalism: Real and Imaginary

New York Sun television critic David Blum weighs in with this confused piece on Peter Arnett's firing:

This has been a dark week in the history of American television--and all because of a warp-speed rush to judgment by a network more concerned with supporting its country's war effort than backing the constitutional principles our soldiers are fighting to defend. [New York Sun, 4/4/03]

There's no question that as Mr. Arnett's employer, NBC had the legal authority to cut him loose for any reason--including the exercise of his right to free speech.

[B]y firing Mr. Arnett in a public humiliation for all to see, NBC has set a chilling precedent that will surely silence any reporter who dares to differ with American foreign policy.

Sadly, it may now be years--not days, or weeks, or months--before we see in the current Gulf War the kind of skeptical on-air journalism that distinguished the careers of men like Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer when they questioned American involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s.

Of course there's a difference between expressing one's opinion on "Meet the Press" and on Iraqi television--but aren't we who watch wall-to-wall American TV coverage consuming just a different form of propaganda?

A day hasn't gone by when I haven't heard at least one TV journalist refer to American forces in Iraq as "we" and the Iraqi military as "they."

The issue of objectivity pertains to how we properly deal with information that is presented to us. It is not, as is commonly held, an issue of "dealing with facts," as the Merriam-Webster dictionary puts it. For objectivity is the means of ascertaining what is factual and what is not; without objectivity facts are unknowable. Without objectivity one cannot distinguish one's personal desires or prejudice from reality.

Objectivity needs a method to integrate new information with existing knowledge. Until new information can be incorporated into what one already knows, it is useless. When confronted with new information one must effectively ask oneself, "How does this add to my understanding of reality?" That information must be interpreted by, and tested against, what one already knows....

[W]hen a reporter is embedded with US troops and witnesses the destruction of Saddam Hussein's military forces, he or she has obtained new information. If this reporter is committed as a matter of principle to objectivity, he or she has by now a lot of knowledge pertaining to what was witnessed....

The reporter needn't, and shouldn't, constantly be a cheer-leader for America in this case. They needn't say "it was a great achievement for freedom-loving people," but that fact should prevent them from reporting a falsehood. For example, because of their knowledge, they should not report the "other side" with equal credibility, e.g., "the Iraqis, on the other hand, consider themselves victims of imperialist aggression." The sum of knowledge the reporter possesses (or should possess) disproves the Iraqi claim and should be presented as being false.

Reporters who present "both sides" equally are not thinking objectively, or at least they are not communicating objective knowledge. Objectivity requires an integration with all knowledge one possesses and not merely the unintegrated information at hand. Reporters who report "both sides" equally are shirking their responsibility to report facts, i.e., a cognitive conclusion. [About the War, 3/31/03]

Or to put it a bit differently: An objective report gives the audience all the information needed to draw a valid conclusion. An objective report might include the latest bombastic fiction from the Iraqi Information Ministry, because an informed audience will want to know what the Iraqis are saying. But to give the Iraqi claims a weight equal to those of the Americans is decidedly non-objective, precisely because it's the reporter's job to evaluate the quality of information and the veracity of his sources, and to present the information behind those judgments as well. An objective report presents the Iraqi minister, and then shows all the evidence that his claims are false. At that point, it's perfectly objective for the reporter to draw the conclusion that the Iraqi minister is lying, because such a conclusion is warranted by the evidence. Being objective means recognizing that not everybody's point of view is equally valid or deserves equal respect.

Paul Blair is former editor of The Intellectual Activist.