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American journalism: Objectivity and reverence
June 26– A June 6th conversation on the National Public
Radio news show On the Media between host Brooke Gladstone and guests
Bill Falk and Jeremy O’Grady, executive editors of the American and
British editions of The Week, highlighted important differences between
American and British journalism, and, more importantly, the sad state
of affairs currently being experienced by the American version of the
discipline.
Jeremy O’Grady, representing Britain’s edition of The Week,
remarked that American journalists display a reverence for the government
and are often afraid to question the official line, while British journalists
are more skeptical and irreverent. As an instructive case in point, O’Grady
pointed to a piece by New York Times columnist Judith Miller that was
essentially sanctioned by the Pentagon: a flimsy article, based entirely
on anonymous sources and Pentagon hearsay, seemingly printed to keep the
hopes alive of those who believe that huge stores of WMD are still going
to be unearthed in Iraq and to buoy artificially the validity of the Bush
administration’s rhetoric. To O’Grady, such a story reeked of
professional coziness the likes of which a Brit would never endure.
American journalism also seems to believe in a theoretical yet attainable
state of objectivity and strictly segregated formats governing the presentation
of opinion and fact — that, in a way, journalism is more of a science
which can be practiced very exactly, not a profession of inherent bias.
The Brit is less afraid of opinion and more naturally embraces slant and
agendas as part and parcel of the journalistic, historical process surrounding
the recounting of events.
Bill Falk observed: “Here when you enter into the New York Times
or the Washington Post, it’s entering into a cathedral. Journalists
— particularly the commentators and the named journalists are the
high priests of the profession, and we worship the truth, and there’s
this sense that in our country the truth is a quantifiable, objective
deity that you can put borders around and say ‘well, this is the
truth and that’s opinion.’”
Such observations touch upon just a few of the characteristics that make
up a larger social and cultural phenomenon that acts as a kind of “default
setting” for American journalism — those foundational, philosophical
and moral beliefs that are used to divine what has come to be perceived
by a majority as the “truth” or “objectivity.”
This “default setting” is best defined by simply stating its
most common, and largely tacit, assumptions:
• Democracy and capitalism are the ultimate realizations of political
and economic systems. This is arguably the bedrock of American journalism.
This belief commonly manifests itself in the distrust and marginalization
of any person or country that is neither, and a hyper-reverence for anything
that is.
• The United States is the rightful enforcer of global order. The
fact that the US wanders the globe establishing a military presence essentially
anywhere it wishes, policing and disciplining small countries that commit
the smallest offense, and consistently offending the sovereignty and cultural
identity of host nations is never questioned on its face. It is allowable
to debate “how” this process should proceed, but never its very
existence or legal or political basis.
• The world needs to be helped by the U.S. This assumption is quite
nuanced because the real meaning is not that those under duress need emotional
and material aid to get back on their feet again (charity, assistance)
but that much of the world is a “failure,” and because of this,
the US is compelled, though reluctantly, to straighten them out. So this
“help” isn’t the giving of food to a poor country (of course,
this is done, but only along with subsidies) but instead is the overthrow
of a government seen undesirable by Washington. Such a philosophy is perfectly
captured by Henry Kissinger’s comments regarding Chile, “I don’t
see why we should have to stand by and let a country go Communist due
to the irresponsibility of its own people.” Very rarely do corporate
journalists ask, “What right do we have to be there in the first
place?”
• The process known innocuously as “globalization” (really,
in economic terms, a kind of global and fully deregulated, free-market
capitalism) is at once beneficial, in fact needed by the communities of
the world, and an egalitarian system of modernization. To argue that “globalization”
is a class sensitive benefactor — enriching the rich and weakening
the poor — or to question its legitimacy or long-term economical
soundness is anathema to American media. Of course, to challenge globalization
is essentially to challenge capitalism.
• America knows best. Regardless of who is involved, how distant
the land or the people, longer exists even in a hybridized form. This
is, perhaps, the most laughable of all the assumptions that one must be
so careful not to disrupt in polite conversation.
These attributes saturate current American journalism and are the reason
many journalists, news agencies, and people around the world take the
American media less and less seriously and strongly question its impartiality
— especially when American commentators and journalists speak so
profoundly of the truth and objectivity while throwing around supposed
facts from the Pentagon or State Department so carelessly.
Later in the interview, O’Grady remarked, “But I don’t
think it’s objectivity versus commentary, though I think that distinction
does exist within the press, but I don’t think it’s the relevant
distinction here. I think it’s much more reverence versus irreverence,
in fact. I think there’s a — there’s an irreverent tradition
here where there is much more likelihood that a journalist will not take
the official line.”
Regarding WMD, he said, “...there were quite a lot of facts which
could have been uncovered with greater diligence, I suspect. Now what
happened I think in the mainstream of reporting over here, and by all
accounts your side of the pond as well, was that there wasn’t much
attempt to highlight the dubious nature of these facts which is not part
of commentary but part of the reporting of facts as facts. What I perceive
to be the difference is an attitude of mind towards the reporting of facts
— reverence versus irreverence.”
These comments begin to explain the situation with American journalism:
objectivity has become reverence. It’s as if an unspoken rule is
that any decent journalist should just accept what the United States government
public relations branch tells them and that to question openly or conspicuously
what one is being told crosses into “advocacy journalism” —
even when what one is being told is absolute nonsense. This, combined
with a dogmatic view of “the truth” and the paranoia surrounding
the concept of “opinion,” has led to the phenomenon of American
news outlets sincerely believing they are fair, balanced, and objective
without interjecting any spin or bias, when, in fact, they are bastions
of advocacy, selectivity, and slant. As a complement to this, it’s
a frequently employed technique to label counter arguments or views as
“opinion.”
In this light, then, there is a strong parallel with Washington’s
foreign policy, as both American journalism and foreign policy seem to
exude a distinct air of infallibility accompanied by an even more marked
contempt for the opinions of organizations and individuals who conceptualize
and think differently.
With each botched story the American media runs in its attempt to titillate
and scare viewers — from dozens of misleading reports about WMD to
the Jessica Lynch rescue fiasco — the further down the drain the
reputation and credibility of American journalism will continue to plunge.
Source: YellowTimes.org
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