The Free Press

[manny31]

I don't mean to go down a quasi political rabbit hole. What do current or alumni journalism students(not exclusively though) think about the Wiki Leaks about different members of the press working with certain candidates? Let's for the sake of argument say that the leaks are true. Do journalists feel a responsibility to report objectively? I once read a quote on Scoop by a former journalism student. To paraphrase he/she said that their intent was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Again not about politics, I want to know if journalists have a responsibility to be objective?

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

I am unfamiliar with the WikiLeaks allegations you are referencing.

What are they exactly and has there been any response?

[brandx]

Every single journalist KNOWS what their journalistic responsibility is. Most - at least on the print side - do a pretty good job of separating their personal beliefs from their journalistic duty.

Whether you agree with "Lib" papers like the NYT or Washington Post - or conservative ones like the Chicago Tribune or Wall Street Journal or LA Times, the reporting is generally pretty honest.


When it comes to the Internet or Cable TV "News", there is almost no such thing as responsible journalism. They are just shills for advocacy sites.

[muwarrior69]

I don't mean to go down a quasi political rabbit hole. What do current or alumni journalism students(not exclusively though) think about the Wiki Leaks about different members of the press working with certain candidates? Let's for the sake of argument say that the leaks are true. Do journalists feel a responsibility to report objectively? I once read a quote on Scoop by a former journalism student. To paraphrase he/she said that their intent was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Again not about politics, I want to know if journalists have a responsibility to be objective?

There are not too many "objective" reporters out there and even fewer "objective" editors today. If there are any out there I would like to know who they are.

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

There are not too many "objective" reporters out there and even fewer "objective" editors today. If there are any out there I would like to know who they are.

Its so hard to be an objective reporter even in the sports world. I recently wrote an article on Colombia soccer and I found myself going a lot easier on Colombian fans than other writers did in regards to the James death threats, and I dont think i even did it intentionally.

I actually think being an unbiased editor is much easier. I am an editor for a sports news website and I find it rather easy to place articles without my personal bias coming in. Then again, I make zero money from sponsors and such on that website so that may make a slight difference.

[HouWarrior]

I just googled the words "Wiki Leaks journalists". given the search results....well this thread is masking a totally political current issue in the news...it aint journalism its political posturing .....I dont go there anymore, per our mods requests.

ie in before the lock

[manny31]

I just googled the words "Wiki Leaks journalists". given the search results....well this thread is masking a totally political current issue in the news...it aint journalism its political posturing .....I dont go there anymore, per our mods requests.

ie in before the lock

As I recall I said "for the sake of argument" let's just say they are true. I then asked if journalists feel an obligation to be objective?  Simple as that. You can say yes or no and if you feel like it you could state why that is your opinion. After you've u stated your opinion you could then argue why your opinion is correct. Unless you have another agenda I don't see what the problem is in asking if journalists feel a duty to be objective.
It is also informative that another poster brought up the editorial role in reporting. That is appreciated.
Also what about "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" I would like a journalism major or an alum speak to that. In truth that bothers me and I don't think I am being unreasonable. I don't think these are political questions, I think they tend toward the moral and ethical variety. If that proves difficult for your alma mater failed you.

[Pakuni]

There are not too many "objective" reporters out there and even fewer "objective" editors today. If there are any out there I would like to know who they are.

How many news reporters and editors do you know?

[dgies9156]

Nobody wants to talk about it but the notion of an objective press is a misnomer that arose only in the past few decades.

Think back to William Randolph Hearst, Col. McCormick, The Grahams etc. All advocated a position for their newspapers. Colonel McCormick was a rock-ribbed conservative. Phil Graham, before he committed suicide, was a closet Kennedy advisor. Reporters have gone back and forth between political advising and reporting for years. Heck, David Axelrod, ye of Obama fame, wrote the lead story in the Tribune about the American Airlines DC 10 crash in May 1979. Axelrod didn't go back into the media because there was far more money in advising political candidates.

The media is made up of people and people have perspectives that creep into their work. An intelligent media consumer acknowledges that and tries to be a renaissance person by reading multiple perspectives on an issue. As one former conservative colleague once said when caught reading the New York Times, "I like to know how the other side thinks!!!"

[Mutaman]

Leaked emails indicate Clinton once washed a spider down the plughole. 

[MU82]

There are many different classifications of journalists.

For example, a newspaper columnist is paid to have an opinion and to express it in a compelling way ... which some might argue means their very job is to NOT be objective. They look at an issue, take a stance on it, and argue for their stance.

A newspaper reporter is supposed to be objective. But that line has blurred at a lot of newspapers, as staffs are smaller and more reporters write columns, at least occasionally.

TV reporters? Most look at themselves as at least some part entertainers. Or at least they are well aware that their business is ratings-driven. It's a different standard, in general.

Internet reporters ... again, it's a somewhat different standard. They have to draw eyeballs.

Back when Woodward and Bernstein were breaking the Watergate story, those who hated Nixon thought they were "objective" and those who liked Nixon (or hated the press) thought they were biased.

So even the measurement of objectivity is subjective. I could write the most fact-driven Trump article to appear in a newspaper tomorrow, and Trump supporters would say it was not objective.

To answer the general question posed in the opening post ... yes, a majority believe they should be "objective." But again, one person's objectivity might be another's subjectivity.

Of course, journalists are human, and humans are subject to biases of one kind or another.

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

To assume WikiLeaks is true is very dangerous.  An agenda driven source that operates under a shroud of darkness.  What they leak cannot always be verified by another source.  How much is doctored?  The alleged Clinton-press email could easily be faked.  Secondly, I have a problem with anyone acquiring information illegally, such as hacking.  I will address the rest in a separate post.

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

I worked in local broadcast TV news for 10 years.  The phrase "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" is not journalism - it's activism.

I prefer "our job isn't to tell people what to think, but what to think about."  Want to say that was said by Walter Cronkite but not 100% sure.

Ideally journalists remain objective but it is impossible to not let your personal viewpoints creep in on a subconscious level.  The key is to try to be fair, truthful, and unbiased.

For example, I made the decision not to even consider signing Scott Walker's recall because I felt that doing so would make me biased.

I also had to cover WI state assembly and senate.  I went to HS with on of the politicians daughters, was friends with her, and even helped make campaign signs for her dad's first campaign.  I feel this did not compromise my objectivity for any general stories in the legislature (he has served in both houses) or any of his committee work.  If there would have been a controversial story that directly involved him, I would have recused myself for a conflict of interest.  One of my co-workers was an investigative reporter and would recuse himself over any issues his wife, a lobbyist, lobbied for.  That is what a journalist should do.

The last point I'll make is don't confuse propaganda with journalism.  A lot of agenda driven people take to the media.  Nowadays blogs are a great example of bias, agenda driven content but it also exists in many media formats, particularly cable TV.  As others have noted, this has gone on long into the past.  Consumers, unfortunately IMO, have to judge not just what is said but who is saying it.  And unfortunately people often mistake what they agree with as unbiased and accurate.

[GooooMarquette]

The last point I'll make is don't confuse propaganda with journalism.  A lot of agenda driven people take to the media.  Nowadays blogs are a great example of bias, agenda driven content but it also exists in many media formats, particularly cable TV.  As others have noted, this has gone on long into the past.  Consumers, unfortunately IMO, have to judge not just what is said but who is saying it.  And unfortunately people often mistake what they agree with as unbiased and accurate.

Agree.  The challenge is that most journalists don't conveniently fall at one end of the spectrum (totally objective) or the other (totally biased).  They fall along a continuum. 

[jficke13]

The thing that makes me angry on a daily basis is the perversion of headlines for the clickbait era.

I would drown myself in a bottle if I had to actually write "You won't believe what happens next" and "5 crazy things, number 3 will SHOCK you" links on a daily basis.

[Lennys Tap]

Above all, reporters/investigative journalists want a good story. No good story without a villain. And it's much easier to look for a villain among the people one (due to his or her biases) already despises. Feels better, somehow more "righteous".

[rocket surgeon]

   many good comments here, especially from those who work or have worked within the industry-thanks

  isn't their a journalistic standard just as there is a standard of care in the healthcare field?  regarding objectivity?  money is the root of all evils...within the field of journalism-7% are registered republicans-just saying...

regardless of whether or not one thinks wiki is real?  full documentation sources are there for all to see.

 

 

[Benny B]

Veey few journalists have exhibited true objectivity in the past 200 years or so.  Everyone has an agenda, whether they realize it or not.

[muwarrior69]

Its so hard to be an objective reporter even in the sports world. I recently wrote an article on Colombia soccer and I found myself going a lot easier on Colombian fans than other writers did in regards to the James death threats, and I dont think i even did it intentionally.

I actually think being an unbiased editor is much easier. I am an editor for a sports news website and I find it rather easy to place articles without my personal bias coming in. Then again, I make zero money from sponsors and such on that website so that may make a slight difference.

Don't editors decide what is news and what is not. It's what they don't tell us that I take issue with. Enlighten me if I am wrong.

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Don't editors decide what is news and what is not. It's what they don't tell us that I take issue with. Enlighten me if I am wrong.

Yes and no, with our site everybody writes their own thing and posts it. My biggest job is deciding which stories are headlined and which are thrown in the dregs of the subsections.

I have the power to pull articles if I really want to but I haven't so far in my short tenure. So to answer your question, yes you can choose what goes on the news and as someone earlier said it's generally money based.

[Benny B]

Yes and no, with our site everybody writes their own thing and posts it. My biggest job is deciding which stories are headlined and which are thrown in the dregs of the subsections.

I have the power to pull articles if I really want to but I haven't so far in my short tenure. So to answer your question, yes you can choose what goes on the news and as someone earlier said it's generally money based.

Generally?  How about entirely?

[Badgerhoney]

To assume WikiLeaks is true is very dangerous.  An agenda driven source that operates under a shroud of darkness.  What they leak cannot always be verified by another source.  How much is doctored?  The alleged Clinton-press email could easily be faked.  Secondly, I have a problem with anyone acquiring information illegally, such as hacking.  I will address the rest in a separate post.

Can you point to a time in the 10 years of WikiLeaks that there document dumps have been fake?  There was an attempt the last few days to make that claim, and even Snopes said the accusation was wrong. http://www.snopes.com/newsweek-proves-that-wikileaks-is-leaking-phony-hillary-clinton-emails/

Show us all the times in 10 years where documents turned out to be fake.  Why is it that Wikileaks was all the rage in the Bush years, hailed by the NY Times, but now they are evil?

[Pakuni]

Can you point to a time in the 10 years of WikiLeaks that there document dumps have been fake?  There was an attempt the last few days to make that claim, and even Snopes said the accusation was wrong. http://www.snopes.com/newsweek-proves-that-wikileaks-is-leaking-phony-hillary-clinton-emails/

Show us all the times in 10 years where documents turned out to be fake.  Why is it that Wikileaks was all the rage in the Bush years, hailed by the NY Times, but now they are evil?

Here you go, Chicos:

There is fake content on Wikileaks. A whistleblower, who asked to remain anonymous, admitted to submitting fabricated documents to Wikileaks to see what it would do. The documents were flagged as potential fakes, but the whistleblower felt that the decision to publish the documents had "an impact on their credibility". When challenged on fake content, Schmitt twists the potential criticism into a positive. "A fake document is a story in itself," he says.

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/exposed-wikileaks-secrets

[Pakuni]

It's interesting (legitimately) to see people who don't work in journalism discuss what they think goes on inside the business.
Some good insight, some pretty far off the mark.
I can only speak for my own experience - which, I daresay is greater than 95 percent of the posters here - so I can't address ALL the media. But in my nearly 25 years in the business, working in small, medium and large markets, I can think of only two instances in which someone at any level of the news operation was intentionally biased. One was at a very small publication where a wire editor admitted to having placed a story about his preferred gubernatorial candidate above a story about the other candidate. The stories weren't altered, changed, etc. Just a matter of story placement.
The other was at a larger operation where a non-journalist with influence leaned on the editorial department to endorse a specific candidate. It had nothing to do with political party or issues, it was simply because this person was buddies with someone affiliated with that candidate.
Other than that, in my more than two decades I have never seen any overt and intentional bias. People try to be fair, even when they vehemently disagree with a person or position, and more importantly try to be accurate.

This is not to say people in newsrooms don't have their preferences and biases. They're all human, after all and undoubtedly those biases can seep in, especially if you're not careful. But the notion, propagated largely by the right, that those in media actively and intentionally work in the interests of one side or another simply isn't anywhere close my reality.
There are exceptions, of course (think Fox News, MSNBC, Breitbart) but those outlets are unabashed about their biases and not representative of the vast majority of "news" outlets out there.

As for making money being a critical element in news coverage ... well, duh. These aren't not-for-profit operations. But very rarely does making money = political bias. The way to make money in this business is to generate content the consumer wants. And for all out bit*hing about celebrity journalism, clickbait, etc. ... that's what you people want, and the metrics prove it. Believe me, the vast majority of journalists would rather do think pieces on the importance of preserving aquifers or revealing flaws in school funding formulas, but by and large that's not what the consumers want. And every day we get feedback via readership/viewership data that proves it.

[mu-rara]

Bias is not in what is reported.  It is in what is spiked.