PressEthic

Bill Keller has had a lot to say about the media lately. Here is a quote from an article in BusinessWeek by Jon Fine.

Keller made repeated references to the extreme partisan nature of current discourse, and cited voices that he said urged the Times to "give it up. Embrace your biases," and write about them "openly." To this, he said "I object. It's like saying since genetics account for so much, we should abandon being parents." Still, he conceded that "a lot of people want journalism that thrills them by telling them what they believe."

I agree with Keller to a certain point. I do not think the NYT should “give it up.” We all know that objectivity is an ideal, not a reality. Simply based on the concept of selective perception, a medium cannot communicate completely unbiased news. But news sources should not throw away the goal of objectivity – at least not all of them.

The goal of objective news reporting is to give people the opportunity to make an educated judgment on a news event without any influence other than the facts and background information relevant to the story. This concept is an essential part of a free-thinking society and an ideal that many news sources, including the NYT, get close to achieving on a regular basis.

That being said, I disagree with Mr. Keller on two points. First, I think the NYT should be more introspective, reporting on itself and documenting its lapses in balance “openly.” If the NYT is truly attempting to be objective, then it should continually investigate itself so that it might better achieve its goal.

Second, while I agree that many people “want journalism that thrills them by telling them what they believe,” it is not the only reason that people read unabashedly biased news sources. Openly biased sources provide context and reactions to news stories that can reinforce a person’s criticism or persuade him or her to reevaluate his or her choice. Certainly this promotes dialogue and can help a person come to a more informed position.

I often have read a news story and not thought much about it until I read a colleague’s blog that raised an interesting question or attacked an angle that the story did not cover. I am very thankful for those occasions, and I think Mr. Keller is generalizing a little too much in his assessment of openly biased journalism. It sounds as if he is a little biased too.