Exchange on objectivity

Hello Davids,

I am a regular reader and enjoy your discussions.

I posted your "About Us" section in a thread on a political forum where the
topic was bias in journalism. It included this line:

"We do not believe that passively observing human misery without attempting
to intervene constitutes 'neutrality'."
To which a regular poster replied:
"........it appears to suggest that journalism is supposed to be proactive
and champion a cause, rather than be objective. It seems to undermine the
ideal they are trying to espouse, to suggest that journalism SHOULD champion
a cause, just THEIR cause and not one they dislike."
I was wondering how you usually respond to this (assuming you have heard the
charge before) ?

Name Withheld

Many thanks. A couple of responses...

First, objectivity is impossible. The historian Howard Zinn has pointed out
that behind any presented fact is a judgement: "the judgement that this fact
is important to put forward (and, by implication, other facts may be
ignored). And any such judgement reflects the beliefs, the values of the
historian [or journalist], however he or she pretends to 'objectivity'".
(The Zinn Reader - Writings on Disobedience and Democracy, Seven Stories
Press, Howard Zinn, 1997, p.16)

Not only is objectivity impossible, it is morally indefensible. Zinn again:

"As I told my students at the start of my courses, 'You can't be neutral on
a moving train.' The world is already moving in certain directions - many of
them are horrifying. Children are going hungry, people are dying in wars. To
be neutral in such a situation is to collaborate with what is going on."
(Ibid, p.17)

The main concern, as I see it, is the extent to which journalism is rational
and honest - do the arguments make sense? Are the facts and sources credible
and reliable? These are judgements we always have to make for ourselves - we
will never encounter an 'objective', 'neutral' journalist whose words can
somehow be taken on trust.

I also agree with Zinn (and Buddhism) that reason and honesty are enhanced
by compassion and compromised by greed and hatred. A journalist who is
sincerely motivated by concern for the suffering of others is more likely to
report honestly than someone motivated by self-interested concern for
wealth, status and power.

Finally, of course we should be pro-active, doing everything we can to
address and relieve the causes of suffering. No one expects a doctor to be
neutral, or a firefighter standing beside a school full of children buring
alive. We are all firefighters in a world of burning children.

Best wishes

David Edwards