Axios Ridiculously Calls For Newsrooms To Ban Journalists From Having Opinions Online

from the view-from-nowhere dept

For years we've talked about the journalistic perils of what journalism professor Jay Rosen calls the "view from nowhere," or the pretty common misconception that journalists should prioritize factual symmetry in news reporting, instead of actually trying to get to the truth. This usually results in "he said, she said" reporting where both sides are given equal weight (even if one side is clearly being intentionally misleading), with the idea that the reader can then ferret out the truth, while the journalist him or herself stands stoically protected from accusations of "bias" because they refused to take a real stand.

Rosen put it this way during an interview back in 2010:

"Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position “impartial.” Second, it’s a means of defense against a style of criticism that is fully anticipated: charges of bias originating in partisan politics and the two-party system. Third: it’s an attempt to secure a kind of universal legitimacy that is implicitly denied to those who stake out positions or betray a point of view. American journalists have almost a lust for the View from Nowhere because they think it has more authority than any other possible stance."

The problem, as you'll often see in modern reporting, is this bid to embrace false equivalency often tends to ignore what's actually true. It's a major contributor to the partisan strife that's ripping the country apart, and it's frequently exploited by companies and politicians who use it to perpetuate outright falsehoods, since even the dumbest ideas must, under this model, be treated with perfect journalistic symmetry, in the process inadvertently advertising the false claims (especially if you choose your headlines poorly).

But a journalist's job isn't just to just report cold claims, it's to get to the truth -- often by adding necessary context, or, in some instances, by not running a story at all if the entire underlying premise is fluff and nonsense. Trump's manipulation of the press is the pinnacle of this dysfunction, with every false claim bouncing around an echo chamber of false objectivity and good intention.

One extension of the view from nowhere is the newsroom idea that journalists should be unfeeling automatons, hiding their true opinions (even if those opinions are fueled by years of experience on a subject) from readers, especially when engaging on social media. Case in point: late last week Axios co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei penned this blog post in which he proclaimed to have devised a solution to the "fake news" problem that's currently plaguing the world. One of those solutions, according to VandeHei, was to urge newsrooms to ban reporters from having opinions online:

"News organizations should ban their reporters from doing anything on social media — especially Twitter — beyond sharing stories. Snark, jokes and blatant opinion are showing your hand, and it always seems to be the left one. This makes it impossible to win back the skeptics."

Yes, banning reporters from joking online will surely fix everything.

VandeHei's "solution" solves nothing, but does indicate he doesn't understand that in the modern media age, the sterile, false objectivity he supports directly contributes to the fake news he proclaims to have the cure for, and the "skeptics" he's trying to appease long ago stopped making claims of bias in good faith, since a key component of modern partisan tribalism involves wielding the word "bias" as a bludgeon against any discordant opinions. Meanwhile, why can't reporters make jokes if their reporting is driven by integrity? How exactly does a snarky comment on Twitter magically erode a career's worth of reporting?

Under this model of journalism, instead of debunking clearly false statements and giving them less (or no) weight when appropriate (say when Ajit Pai clearly spreads falsehoods about net neutrality for the eightieth time), these kinds of reporters tend to give those claims equal attention, assuming the reader can ferret out the truth.

That manifests itself constantly in issues like net neutrality, where false claims are often amplified in headlines and throughout a story, counterbalanced by the other take (usually partisan in nature) as if both sides are somehow correct and Ajit Pai hasn't been lying his ass off on this subject for the better part of two straight years. The only positive outcome of that falsely-symmetrical reporting is you've amplified what's often outright disinformation and given the reader no context to debunk it. More well-rounded reporting in the post-truth era absolutely must evolve, stop playing patty cake, and call a duck a duck when it's factually appropriate.

Donald Trump, Ajit Pai and their ilk thrive under this view from nowhere because it often assumes that to be fair, blatant lies are one valid half of a two-sided, always perfectly symmetrical story. Fortunately numerous folks were quick to ridicule VendeHei's take, including New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik, who quite correctly points out that you don't just magically "build trust" by banning your reporters from sharing years of informed opinion on social media:

Others, like reporter Karen Ho, were correct to point out that white, wealthy males are usually the ones who get to define what objectivity means in many major media newsrooms, something VandeHei doesn't seem all-too keyed in on:

Again, "he said she said" reporting has been absolutely fatal for America, and to suggest that banning your reporters from expressing their informed opinions (or god forbid being snarky about it on Facebook) doesn't even come close to understanding the problem, much less fixing it. And this is all before you even get to the oceans of disinformation (both foreign and domestic) that's been happily kicking the truth in the crotch in this country for the better part of a generation.

As we've noted previously, it's not "bias" if you're genuinely seeking the truth or pointing out obvious falsehoods, snark or not. It's "bias" if you refuse to call a patently false statement a false statement, or help give clearly inaccurate arguments weight they don't deserve. This belief that journalists should stand stoically silent in an illusory "middle," apply perfect dispassionate symmetry to all things, and then assume the reader can just mystically infer the truth from your sterile, often incomplete reporting--is one of the biggest reasons we're currently facing a disinformation apocalypse in the first place.

Filed Under: community, jay rosen, jim vandehei, journalism, opinion, trust, truth, view from nowhere
Companies: axios