4 ms·
There is no such thing as unbiased news. What you want instead is the Hunter S. Thompson model where the journalist makes their opinion clear and upfront. Then,
by 27182818284 17y ago
There is no such thing as unbiased news. What you want instead is the Hunter S. Thompson model where the journalist makes their opinion clear and upfront. Then, you can judge the rest of their reporting yourself. A lot of journalism majors I know try to pretend their unbiased, but that isn't how humans work. Say it upfront like programmers do ("First of all I have to admit I use Lisp/Python/Whatever but here is what I don't like about Ruby 1.9 blah blah")
edit: typos
- gibsonf1 17y agoActually, before Sulzberger took over the NYT, the Times was the gold standard in objective reporting. I loved it back then.
- bokonist 17y agoYou were reading the NY Times before 1935? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hays_Sulzberger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hays_Sulzberger Jokes aside, NY Times has never been unbiased. Try reading the Power Broker.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- jkincaid 17y agoSpot on. A story can present totally objective facts, but it will still be biased because the reporter decided which facts to include and which to omit. Likewise, reporters choose which experts they want to quote in their stories.
- joshu 17y agoA friend's project: http://fairspin.org/ http://fairspin.org/ tries to expose some bias issues. Perhaps interesting in this context?
- nir 17y agoObjectivity may be an unreachable goal, but it doesn't mean that journalists shouldn't aim for it. The Hunter Thompson model also includes making stuff up - I'd very much prefer a story that tries to be unbiased, even if it fails, to a story that's written completely from the point of the writer's personal affiliations. It can be great literature, but it's not reporting.