journalism WAS Re: Wolfe

[Doug Millison]

At 12:31 PM -0400 6/10/00, glthompson wrote:
>Re Doug's post on the naivete of objective journalism: are there degrees of
>objectivity? That is, can an article be more or less fair even if it
>acknowledges that it's working from a subjective stance?

The relative truth of journalism relates to several factors, in my view. A
given journalistic report will be more or less complete depending on how
deeply the journalist digs, how broadly she seeks input (facts, interviews,
etc.) regarding the issue at question, how inclusive she seeks to be, etc.
A work of journalism can also be more or less biased to favor a particular
point of view, more or less unconsciously on the part of those who report,
write, edit, and publish the work.  But in all cases the results -- the
published article, or book, film or broadcast, or Web-based report --
represent the fruits of a process marked from start to finish by choice,
filtering, point-of-view. The journalist, editor, publisher are always in
the story; fairness relates to how forthright they will be in acknowledging
their biases and the degree to which they have omitted or suppressed one or
another element of the story.

In the Online Journalism FAQ that I publish in my Web site (at
http://www.online-journalist.com/faq.html) I discuss what I think the Web
and interactivity provide in terms of making journalism more complete and
more open to a wider spectrum of perspectives beyond those of the
journalist, editor, and publisher.

d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>