TAM, Vietnam (and Cronkite, for that matter) were before my time. I was merely using his name (which admittedly carries that "air of objectivity" nowadays, rightly or wrongly I won't pretend to know) as an example.The Annoyed Man wrote:The problem is that Cronkite wasn't even the close to the paragon of objectivity that his worshippers remember. He sat there on the screens in our living rooms, on the heels of a huge U.S. military victory in Vietnam - the end of the Tet Offensive - and told us that the war was unwinnable and lost. And the nation's youth and lefties believed him because he was the alleged prophet of truth. Tet was a military victory for the U.S. by any objective analysis, but Cronkite turned it into a political loser. Hardly objective reporting. The rest is history.austinrealtor wrote:They can't be Walter Cronkite AND William F. Buckley. And the dividing line between punditry and reporting must remain clear and never crossed if a news organization is to have any hope of credibility. To use Cronkite and Buckley as examples, if I was head of a news organization - Cronkite would be absolutely prohibited from giving money to candidates or parties or attending any political gathering unless covering it; Buckley could give money to whomever he wants but would NEVER be allowed to cover the news.
But again, when there are two (or more) differing opinions or disputed "facts" about what is the objective truth, then defining bias and objectivity in delivery of the news is a near impossible task, and actually practicing it is even more difficult. Like you, I don't believe pure 100% objectivity is possible in news or anywhere else in life. Juries are biased, judges are biased, preachers are biased. The very nature of history and the current events that later become history are biased. It's all about point of view. To a Mexican, the history of Texas taught in an average Texas middle school is extraordinarly biased. But the one constant of human history is that to the victor goes not only the spoils, but also the "truth".
But the journalistic standard is to supress this bias within the person (the reporter, editor, etc) as much as humanly possible. When FoxNews says "Fair and Balanced", they seem to base this on the idea of presenting "both sides" to a story. And they, like CNN and some others, IMHO do a decent job of this on their truly "news" shows (leaving out of course O'Reilly, Hannity, and whatever is CNN's latest lame attempt to advocacy journalism). But this is a simplistic way of defining "fair and balanced". True objectivity goes beyond this. First of all, there are often more than just "two sides" to every story - some stories have many more "sides" or angles. True objectivity in reporting would give equal time, weight, and reporting talent to all these angles and then package all of this together in an interesting and easily understandable package. This is not easy to do. It takes time, space, effort, talent, resources. The icons of American journalism, watching their ratings/readership dissolve in a fractured media marketplace, do not devote enough of any of these needs to present the most objective news possible.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that for the true journalists who are at least trying to maintain objectivity to the best of the frail human abilities and confines of available time/resources, an "acceptable" (to me anyway) amount of objectivity is possible. One of the many many "rules" of this objectivity is to not make your personal opinions public knowledge (and donating money to a campaign, which becomes a public record, clearly violates this rule).
As long as there are factions that will always disagree with "the truth" when it does not represent what THEY want the truth to represent, you will also have claims of bias. But, as with all things in life, sooner or later everyone must choose for themselves when the news they are reading is "true enough" to meet their personal standards.
Again, I wasn't there when Cronkite reported on Vietnam, so I have no opinion about his trustworthiness at that time. But I have obviously followed the reporting on the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And much of the argument over what is objective currently relates to "tone" ... meaning neither "side" will often say that a particular news story is an outright fabrication. The argument seems to be about the "overall tone" of coverage generally or of a particular story. While the tone of coverage is vitally important because it can and has drastically swayed public opinion, in a technical sense a journalist can be "objective" even while contributing to the furthering of a particular "tone" of coverage that some people may not like. For instance, it is an objective fact that many people believe the US "tortured" detainees in Abu Graib, Gitmo etc. Obviously reporting this will anger many people who feel the report is biased against the US military or the Bush Administration or whatever. But the fact remains that many people believe this torture took place. The trick as a consumer of news is to decide if the "facts" follow one of two major constructions:
1. It is a fact THAT SOMEONE BELIEVES something happened
2. It is a fact THAT SOMETHING DID happen.
The second template above is obviously the holy grail that all news gatherers and consumers wish to have. It is also often just as elusive, for who can truly know "the facts" other than those who were there and witnessed an event first-hand. And, as we all know from studying/discussing criminal trial testimony on this board, even an eyewitness can present disputed or biased "facts" because our eyes can deceive us and warp what we see.
So once you get beyond the basic tangible facts .... for example, in 1986 the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after liftoff .... everything else, the all-important questions of why? how? etc. are often not even objectively discernable, in most instances of "why?" there are usually at least two competing theories.
As long as an objective journalist reports each competing theory of why? how? etc., then they have done their basic job. A greater, but much more treacherous, next step is to help the news consumer determine which theory of the facts is best. This can also be done objectively if objective guidelines for what will be the determining factors of "best" are spelled out ahead of time, before the theories are even known. But, while many news organizations attempt this form of unbiased "analysis", few get it right, instead letting biases or even outright ignorance cloud their judgments.
And, of course, the next step is true "advocacy journalism" which is more akin to the tenants of speech & debate class than journalism class, more fit for lawyers/litigators than true journalists. The Olbermanns, Hannitys etc. of the world fall into this category, which should never be confused with news.
Anyway, I'm rambling again .... apologies for my verbose rantings.
