Objectivity in Other Places and New Times

Abstract

In her excellent and provocative essay, Stephanie Craft effectively argues that uncritical adherence to “professional” journalism ethics, particularly as enacted in misguided service of objectivity, does journalists and the public much more harm than good. Indeed, objectivity has become something of a straw man in academic circles, posited mainly for the purpose of being discredited. It is widely seen as a foundational norm of U.S. journalism but is an inherently flawed concept: Typically misconstrued by both practitioners and audiences, more likely to lead to false equivalence than to meaningful explanation, almost laughably ill-suited to a digital information environment, and in any case unattainable by actual human beings. As Craft points out, objectivity as a dominant professional norm also is historically and culturally specific. In this commentary, I would like to extend her ideas in both place and time. She focuses on American journalism, yet in many other Western democracies, journalistic work is not explicitly linked to objectivity. And she takes us through the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. But the story continues beyond that seminal moment, in ways that seem to me striking and significant.