The pretense of journalistic objectivity

Ever since I was a young child, I enjoyed the news. The ritual of watching nightly roundups and reading the Sunday’s editions were things that I took very seriously. I long recognized that the media is an important and powerful tool in our society. While I’m not as committed in my consumption of the news now, my view of the media has not significantly waned although it has been tainted. Despite its power to inform and raise the consciousness of a society, the way in which the media operates and is utilized can also be disastrous.

Despite our small population size, Guyana has many media outlets and the scene is constantly expanding – we are quite cosmopolitan in that regard. This steady expansion has the capacity to be good given how deeply classist, ethnic and politically partisan our media outlets are. Unfortunately, not many are able or willing to remove themselves from the set mold of our landscape. The economics of it all often trumps any real desire to pursue the mythic concept of informed objectivity.

The concept of journalistic objectivism is one that I’ve always found fascinating. At one point I would’ve argued that it is real and ever-present. This however was not a very objective stance given my involvement in the media but thankfully, it was not long before it was recognized that none of us are as objective as we’d like to portray ourselves. Objective truth is very subjective and dependent on who is telling the tale. It is shaped by one’s beliefs and motivations. Recognizing this was like finally finding that evasive puzzle piece.

Many things started falling into place concerning the stories our media choose to do, the ones they didn’t, how stories were framed and who were sought out for interviews. Many stories and issues that are not within the collective interest of the elite media and the career political class to which they are aligned, are often ignored or morphed into something different than its original form. This is not surprising when we realize that many figures behind our media outlets emanate from the elite class of businesspersons and politicians who are interested in influencing public thoughts and beliefs. Yet there is a fierce reliance on promoting themselves as objective and framing their narratives as a commitment to the truth.

Objectivity is nice to think about – but it is an illusion and in this illusion lays very little understanding of how journalists and their stories impact society. For the most part, I get it. There are a lot of conflicting diktats that journalists have to abide by. They must be neutral yet have impact, they must be barebones yet analytical and they must be active chroniclers yet disinterested observers. It’s no wonder that media personnel often fall short. After all, they’re operating on a flawed philosophy. This philosophy that prioritizes equal claim to freedom of expression from all groups concerned is very worrying as this makes it seem that there is nothing at stake when covering socio-political issues other than ensuring a difference of opinion is represented. This is not reality though and structural barriers and identifications such as race, class, gender, sexuality and dis/ability shape journalists and the stories they pursue.

The history of objectivity would reveal that it is not the natural mode of the news process. News historically was to amplify the messages of the powerful ruling class and unfortunately, it still is. The idea of journalistic objectivity would not be picked up as the ideal for the profession until the 1920s when many newspaper closings would see the need for surviving papers to appeal to a much broader audience than the partisan ones they had been catering to. Objectivity was birthed out of economic necessity but the economic imperative to remain objective is rapidly dwindling.

Now it seems that those who attempt to pursue objectivity, face the real possibility of alienating their readers. The rise of social media and stark drops in sales/viewership has seen many shirking the guise of neutral reporting and returning to the comforts of partisanship to maintain their support base. Negative partisanship is what sells. It is what keeps loyal paying and engaged customers who value provocative news rather than ones that are studiously objective. It’s why many news reports read like opinion pieces rather than fact based accounts and analysis. Instead we are fed a steady stream of divisive reports and misinformation that is based on biased opinions.

Our media is centred upon the political economy we exist in so when this is threatened, they react accordingly to reinforce or return it to normalcy. Media has immense power and in the right hands, it can ensure a march towards collective progress. But financial interests largely drive media, so the latter rarely if ever happens, as investments must be protected. Many of our media outlets will often pander to surface revolution without actually doing the revolutionary work of challenging the systems that they rely upon for their profits and existence. Despite it having the capacity to empower people and challenging oppressive systems, the media remains a tool of inequality and delegitimization as information has always and will for the foreseeable future, continue to privilege the powerful.

Objectivity has been expertly used to marginalize radical voices and also to effectively quiet and discredit critics. The mere selection of stories and their accompanying facts allow for the insertion of journalistic and editorial biases. Through this practice, the media actively gate-keeps. Dissenting voices are rarely ever heard and even if they are, the breadth of the debate is limited. As a result, the official stance of institutions the media is aligned to is what becomes history and what could have been cause for concern by many people is diverted elsewhere. With the insidious presence of selection/confirmation bias and attribution errors, the malleability of fact-based objectivity cannot withstand much scrutiny. This is not necessarily a conspiracy, rather it is a hegemonic function of the media that works in alignment with propaganda and ensures people do not get all the information they need to question current systems and pursue change. It really matters who is making the editorial decisions.

Certainly though, the pretense of objectivity in the media has persisted for good reasons, it can protect persons from what they write. Many in the media believe that the public’s opinions needs to be shaped for their own good given their views of what is best for their base and the country. I think once we get over the idea that objectivity is possible, it will place our media in a better position to carry news that actually reaches something close to that standard. Subjectivity would always be the natural inclination and recognizing that can ensure that while journalists and editors are aware of their views/biases, with ethical journalism would come a movement towards ensuring that there is a conscious minimization of the impact of their subjectivity. This would ensure that they consciously pore over their work for prejudice, bias and personal views before dissemination. There must be more reflection and care in the way news is approached and framed. To do otherwise often lends legitimacy to voices that are a threat to certain populations. There must be more caution and attention to how words may affect one’s audiences in both the short and long term.