Sunday, February 17, 2008

He said She said

Even though objectivity isn't natural to human beings I'm a firm believer of striving for objectivity in journalism. We discussed in class that people nowadays enjoy news outlets that let's its leanings be known - but I consider that slightly different than objectivity.

My ideal of a good media outlet is one that openly acknowledges it's leanings (biases is too strong a word) but still tells all sides of the story. Not being objective (which we already established is physically impossible to the human mindset) is completely different than not trying to be objective.

The idea that there is no "time or place" for objectivity in today's news is sad. It's our role as responsible journalists to not only tell people what they want to hear, but what they need to hear. News being completely biased would just lead to confusion because no one would see both sides of the story. If they had the option, people would only watch/read the news they like the leaning of. Arguing never works when you don't know, understand or acknowledge the other person's point of view and doing away with the idea of objectivity in journalism would just add to the chaos that creates.

Whether people want their news to be objective or not doesn't really matter. People don't always know what's good for them and objectivity is something they need to be force fed if necessary.

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