Sunday, May 3, 2009

009

The concept of objectivity is a controversial one in the field of journalism. Why do you think it causes so much controversy?

Journalists are human and humans have opinions, which are sometimes hard to hide. Many news publications strive to be objective in their reporting, but each reporter or journalist has their own subjective view of people, events, and so forth.

As many people who do not live under rocks know, certain news corporations have reputations for "leaning" to one end of the political spectrum or another, instead of staying neutral and reporting events as they happen without any further interpretations or biases. For example, FOX Broadcasting Company is known to be politically right-leaning (conservative) in their presentation of news.

Being that it is difficult for people, including well-trained journalists, to completely hide the points of view of themselves or those they work for, opinions will be formed by the viewers about the network and the reporters. Controversy is then caused because the news is supposed to be objective, but it is almost impossible for people to be objective about anything. Perhaps one day it shall be realize that complete objectivity may be an unrealistic goal?

Still, trying for objectivity in the news has been a tradition since the dawn of mass media and old habits die hard. As long as reporters still have opinions and readers and viewers of the mass media still expect their news to be served to them objectively, there will be controversy and angst surrounding this concept. That is likely the reason why people gravitate towards news networks that hold similar beliefs as they do, and why those news networks exist and thrive in the first place.

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