On objectivity – The Economist:

‘But at the heart of many of these arguments is another disagreement, about the nature and purpose of journalism. As a Bloomberg employee is said to have remarked at a recent meeting, reporters are meant to be objective, but to many the distinction between right and wrong now seems obvious. A new generation of journalists is questioning whether, in a hyper-partisan, digital world, objectivity is even desirable. “American view-from-nowhere, ‘objectivity’-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment,” tweeted Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer-winning 30-year-old now at cbs News. The dean of Columbia Journalism School described objectivity as an “inherited shibboleth” in a message to students. The Columbia Journalism Review pondered: “What comes after we get rid of objectivity in journalism?” Objectivity hasn’t always been a journalistic ideal. Early American newspapers read a bit like today’s blogs, says Tom Rosenstiel of the American Press Institute (api), an industry group. Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette and Alexander Hamilton’s Gazette of the United Stateswere unashamedly partisan. As they sought wider audiences in the 19th century, newspapers became more concerned with what they called “realism”. Some of this was provided by the Associated Press (ap), founded in 1846, which supplied stories to papers of diverse political leanings and so stuck to the facts. As the news pages became more even-handed, publishers established editorial pages, on which they could continue to back their favoured politicians.’

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‘A second cause of doubts about objectivity is the changing make-up of the American newsroom. Amid more diverse recruitment, the share of the Times’ editorial staff who are white is falling; the proportion who are women is rising. Not only has this sharpened sensitivity to odd phrases like “racially infused”; it has also made some wonder if the “objective” viewpoint is in fact a white, male one. The “view from nowhere” is just the view of “a white guy who doesn’t even exist”, Dan Froomkin, an outspoken media critic, has argued.
Concerns like these might in the past have remained on the shop floor. But a third factor—the rise of social media—has given dissenters a megaphone. It has also highlighted the contrast between the detached style journalists are meant to adopt in print and the personal approach many employ online—something bosses seem unsure whether to encourage or deter. Readers, for their part, are bathed on the web in highly partisan content that whets their appetite for more opinionated news. The division between news and comment, clear on paper in American journalism, dissolves on the internet. A study for the api in 2018 found that 75% of Americans could easily tell news from opinion in their favoured outlet, but only 43% could on Twitter or Facebook.’

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‘The final reason for the turn against objectivity is commercial. The shift away from partisanship a century ago was driven partly by advertisers. Today, as ad revenues leak away to search engines and social networks, newspapers have come to rely more on paying readers. Unlike advertisers, readers love opinion. Moreover, digital publication means American papers no longer compete regionally, but nationally. “The local business model was predicated on dominating coverage of a certain place; the national business model is about securing the loyalties of a certain kind of person,” wrote Ezra Klein of Vox. Left-leaning New Yorkers may switch to the Washington Post if the Times upsets them. The incentive to keep readers happy—and the penalty for failing—are greater than ever.
These pressures are changing the way newspapers report. Last year ap’s style book declared: “Do not use racially charged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable.” Some organisations have embraced, even emblazoned taboo words: “A Fascist Trump Rally In Greenville” ran a headline last year in the Huffington Post. Others are inserting more value judgments into their copy. A front-page news piece in the Times this month began: President Trump used the spotlight of the Fourth of July weekend to sow division during a national crisis, denying his failings in containing the worsening coronavirus pandemic while delivering a harsh diatribe against what he branded the “new far-left fascism”.

Disenchanted with objectivity, some journalists have alighted on a new ideal: “moral clarity”. The phrase, initially popularised on the right, has been adopted by those who want newspapers to make clearer calls on matters such as racism. Mr Lowery repeatedly used the phrase in a recent Times op-ed, in which he called for the industry “to abandon the appearance of objectivity as the aspirational journalistic standard, and for reporters instead to focus on being fair and telling the truth, as best as one can, based on the given context and available facts.” The editor of the Times, Dean Baquet, called Mr Lowery’s column “terrific” in an interview with the “Longform” podcast. Objectivity has been “turned into a cartoon”, he said. Better to aim for values such as fairness, independence and empathy.
Back in the 1920s, Lippmann might have agreed with much of this. He saw objectivity not as a magical state of mind or a view from nowhere, but as a practical process. Journalism should aim for “a common intellectual method and a common area of valid fact”, he wrote. That does not mean using euphemisms in place of plain language, or parroting both sides of an argument without testing them. Indeed, when journalism has erred in recent years, it has often done so by misinterpreting objectivity, rather than upholding it. The most persuasive calls for moral clarity today articulate something close to Lippmann’s original conception of objectivity.’

Read the article here.

Walter Benjamin famously declared that neutrality is for the Gods. Perhaps the same can be said about objectivity or what is sneeringly called ‘bothsidesism’.

But what does ‘fairness, independence and empathy’ mean exactly when it comes to writing journalistic articles? Shouldn't objectivity be fair, independent and yes filled with empathy without sentimentality?

Empathy of course is always empathy with friends, disgust and ridicule can be reserved for the enemy.

And yes, sheer capitalism and the need for profit drives this ‘new’ empathy and fairness. The happy reader is always a reader that feels the right emotions. My newspaper is telling me what I want to read or listen to.

The question why politicians fail to confront their voters with unpopular truths has been answered.
They want to keep their voters happy.
Happiness comes first, then the truth.