3 ms·

It's not my job to decide which of the different views on a topic I cover is "correct" or "right." Right, but it's also not your job to draw false dichotomies

by pius 18y ago

It's not my job to decide which of the different views on a topic I cover is "correct" or "right." Right, but it's also not your job to draw false dichotomies and go out of your way to imply moral equivalence just so you can slather a patina of "fairness" over your work. Even the best (especially the best?) journalists have to editorialize, whether they come to grips with that fact or not. The alternative would be to present an infinity of viewpoints on every topic one covers in any piece one writes. At some point one has to exercise discretion on what gets included and what doesn't, on what gets covered in detail and what doesn't. I don't think it's right or realistic to try to abdicate that part of one's journalistic responsibility.

nazgulnarsil 18y ago
+1. you're going to be biased whether you want to or not. being aware of the bias is 100 times better than a shallow spackle of surface fairness.
brandnewlow 18y ago
I agree in the sense that one must place differing viewpoints in context, show how they relate to one another, how they're supported or not supported and in general give an accurate depiction of the lay of the land. If there are dichotomies, they need to be accurate. The last step, declaring one other the other "correct" or "right." is what rankles me.
ja2ke 18y ago
Agreed 100%. No news piece (even on the internet) has an infinite word count available to dedicate to a particular topic. This means that the reporter for the story and the responsible editor have to decide what is actually relevant and newsworthy enough to merit inclusion in the story, and what is chaff. That's not editorializing or biased reporting, it's good newswriting. Dedicating half of your story to, for instance, a crazy windbag representing a tiny minority for the (professionally misguided and misinterpreted) purpose of an unbiased piece is where the insanity comes in. If in researching a story you find that there are some dissenting views, you include a quote from them somewhere in the piece, but you don't turn your piece into that one guy or one group versus the original focus of the story. That's sloppy and misrepresenting the issue because you've mistaken "unbiased reporting" with "50/50 equal time for two views."

by pius 18y ago

nazgulnarsil 18y ago

+1. you're going to be biased whether you want to or not. being aware of the bias is 100 times better than a shallow spackle of surface fairness.

brandnewlow 18y ago

I agree in the sense that one must place differing viewpoints in context, show how they relate to one another, how they're supported or not supported and in general give an accurate depiction of the lay of the land. If there are dichotomies, they need to be accurate. The last step, declaring one other the other "correct" or "right." is what rankles me.

ja2ke 18y ago

Agreed 100%. No news piece (even on the internet) has an infinite word count available to dedicate to a particular topic. This means that the reporter for the story and the responsible editor have to decide what is actually relevant and newsworthy enough to merit inclusion in the story, and what is chaff. That's not editorializing or biased reporting, it's good newswriting. Dedicating half of your story to, for instance, a crazy windbag representing a tiny minority for the (professionally misguided and misinterpreted) purpose of an unbiased piece is where the insanity comes in. If in researching a story you find that there are some dissenting views, you include a quote from them somewhere in the piece, but you don't turn your piece into that one guy or one group versus the original focus of the story. That's sloppy and misrepresenting the issue because you've mistaken "unbiased reporting" with "50/50 equal time for two views."