More Objectivity Mumbo Jumbo At The NY Times
Will the freshman j-school seminar on objectivity never end at The Times? http://nyti.ms/cml0nM
Jeff Jarvis
(via Twitter)
Jarvis cuts off the new Public Editor of the NY Times, Arthur Brisbane, at the knees.
Brisbane is yowling about the decline of objective journalism, citing a large number of annoyed readers who would like the tooth fairy to take control of the swirling opinions that are permeating the news. He quotes Dan Gillmor, who sees no conflict between “having a worldview and doing great journalism”, but he doesn’t countenance the psychological and philosophical basis of human consciousness: it is impossible to report on the news, or to even decide how much to say about various ‘sides’ of the news, without making judgments about where the hypothetical ‘middle ground’ is.
There is no way to make sense of the world — or to help others do so — without being grounded in beliefs about what is true, what is false, and the values what animate our beliefs. It’s impossible.
But apparently we have yet another advocate of the impossible, which is simply the silent and unexamined acceptance of a set of beliefs about objective journalism.
Brisbane seems intend on wagging his finger at all this new-fangled gonzo writing and the retreat from the high and noble principles of old school journalis, as in this:
When I asked Matt Bai about his Aug. 12 “Political Times” column on Representative Paul Ryan — the one Mr. Johnson criticized — he said: “I guess my column is part of a broader effort to take some chances in the paper and explore different formats for a new era. I think that represents a great and exciting trend for the paper; none of us can afford to think in old rubrics for new generations of readers.”
Bai’s editor, Richard Stevenson, the deputy Washington bureau chief, elaborated on how The Times is navigating the new norms. “We are still exploring how much of a voice you can have … what kinds of conclusions you can draw when it comes to politics,” he said.
A news-page column like “Political Times” carries the “freedom to reach a reported conclusion,” he said. Not to “throw opinion around,” but to “express in a restrained and fact-bound way a conclusion about something.”
Mr. Stevenson’s careful language draws a line between a Times news-page column and the kind of material one looks for on the Op-Ed page. I acknowledge the distinction in theory but think it is a very fine line, one that is easy to miss and easy to transgress. And one that readers often can’t see.
He characterizes what the NY Times is trying to do as playing in a mosh pit, so we can assume that Brisbane will be returning to this theme again and again.
