Objectivity

I came across an interesting post the other day while reading John Robinson's blog. An unhappy reader had expressed disappointment with the Greensboro News and Record's "biased" sports coverage.

 Said the reader:

"I am so sick and tired of the Greensboro Daily News' obvious bias when it comes to your so-called sports coverage. Whatever happened to objective reporting? And not just in the stories but in the placement of stories. Any journalism 101 class teaches that a newspaper should be fair to both sides."

This argument for objectivity is invalid because it assumes that objectivity and fairness mean the same thing. But they don't.

 If you are objective, it means that you are not influenced by personal feelings or opinions. No one is objective because it's impossible to be. No matter how hard you try, you will always bring your own unique worldview -- a professor of mine calls it "luggage" -- to your writing.

So all a journalist can do is try to be fair. To be fair is to treat both sides the same, despite your inner bias. It doesn't mean you try to deny the fact that your biases exist, only that you suppress them for the sake of integrity.

Bias is a fact of life. Objectivity is a myth. The day journalism 101 classes teach students to be objective is the day they teach them not to be human.