This slipped off my radar for a few days, which is probably a good thing. Dan Gillmor has posted a very interesting essay on objectivity (he calls it version 0.91 and says it’s a work in progress). To oversimplify, he calls the principle of objectivity worthwhile but one that could be replaced by four notions that add up to the same desired result: thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency.
I like the essay a lot. It jibes with a lot of my own thinking on objectivity, developed over a couple of decades of reporting and a few years of teaching journalism.
The reason that posting this late turns out to be a good thing, is that the essay has touched off a huge response. A number of web sites have picked up on the piece (and not just locally: among the trackbacks, I recognized German and Portuguese) and there are a large number of comments that add to the conversation.
We may be past the time when a singular concept such as objectivity or fairness can be applied to the media as a whole. With the expansion of the mediascape far beyond “professional” journalism, many of the basic definitions are under scrutiny and multiple remedies are emerging.
But the conversation is important. It’s the application of “standards” such as thoroughness, accuracy, fairness and transparency that are going to define the authentic voices of media, old and new. Gillmor’s quartet allows for journalism with a voice or point of view, as well as ensuring we can trust the voice of the “neutral” observers and reporters.
TECHNORATI TAGS: JOURNALISM, OBJECTIVITY
