Journalists as People
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BOB GARFIELD: This is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. We don't believe in objectivity any more. We know it isn't possible. And yet the public expects reporters to be objective -- to give them the facts, without infusing them with bias. But to what lengths should reporters go? Some are gay, some are black, some are disabled, some are Christian, Muslim, Jewish -- yes, even Republican. Should they be expected to report fairly on beats that encroach on their personal lives? Bob Steele, an expert in journalistic ethics at the Poynter Institute, says it depends.
BOB STEELE: I do believe it's appropriate for journalists to live meaningful lives. I believe it's appropriate for journalists to practice their faith, if they wish to do so. I believe it's appropriate for journalists to vote, if they wish to do so. There's a big difference in my mind between going to church and becoming an activist in a sense of a public display.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Journalists should refrain from activism, says Steele. If you go to church, don't volunteer in the parish public relations office. If you're disabled, don't lobby your congressman for street ramps. If you're gay, don't march in the parade. Vote if you want to, but don't put a campaign sign on your lawn.
MICHAEL SKOLER: We restrict our reporters' political activity.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Skoler, managing director for news at Minnesota Public Radio, says the policy applies to everyone, from political correspondents to arts reporters.
MICHAEL SKOLER: So that means you shouldn't register as a member of a political party, you shouldn't participate in a Minnesota caucus, you shouldn't attend rallies or show any other public support for a party or a political cause.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: With the exception of restricting party affiliation, which is unusual, his is the policy that prevails in most newsrooms, but just because you don't trumpet your beliefs doesn't mean you don't have 'em.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: This notion that journalists ought to be sort of political, ideological eunuchs who don't have any political views is just hopeless.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Kinsley is editorial and opinion editor for the Los Angeles Times.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: The question isn't whether they hold opinions but whether they suppress those opinions to the extent they can when they do their work.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When Kinsley was the editor of Slate, he disclosed who he was voting for and invited his reporters and editors to do the same. Mostly, they did. He admits it was less risky for Slate than for other news outlets because Slate is a journal of commentary and analysis, but--
MICHAEL KINSLEY: I think newspapers ought to do it, precisely because it's a fiction to suppose that reporters don't have political views, and it would be healthier and more honest if they simply said what they were.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Len Downie, the editor of the Washington Post, is the poster child for the opposing view --the one that says reporters should keep mum. But he takes it even further. When executive editor Ben Bradlee handed him the reins 20 years ago, he stopped voting.
LEN DOWNIE: Unlike the rest of our staff, I had the last word as to whether or not the paper was being fair in its reporting on these issues, and I didn't want to take a position, even in my own mind on them. I wanted to maintain a completely open mind.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And so, despite all the information that flows through your desk and all you know about the political environment of Washington, DC, you are able to not make up your mind?
LEN DOWNIE: Yes, actually it comes fairly easily to me. I guess it's the nature of my personality to see all sides of most issues. In fact, I'm rather surprised at people that are so definite about things.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: Does he say he can bend forks with his mind? You know, some people can do remarkable things.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Kinsley.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: I mean Len Downie, I admire. But I'm not sure that I would admire him as much if I thought that he was really able to go blank in his mind as easily as he claims to.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The argument against laying your cards, assuming you have any, on the table, is two-fold. One says that if reporters state their conflict of interest right and left, editors would have to bar them from covering certain stories, because the public wouldn't trust them to be fair, even if they were. It's about appearances. We'll return to that one. But there is a second, more intriguing argument -- the one that says that taking a political action makes your views stronger. Minnesota Public Radio's Michael Skoler.
MICHAEL SKOLER: When you kind of put a sign up or put your money where your mouth is, you move from observing to acting. And I think that changes you internally. You can even see it when people purchase a car. You know, how many friends have you had where they finally --they struggle with what car to purchase, and when they finally purchase it, they try to convince all their friends how brilliant their decision was. That, you know, kind of putting a stake in the ground makes you vested.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ethan Bronner, deputy foreign editor of the New York Times, spent decades on difficult beats and managed not to get vested in his stories, even when reporting from the most polarized place on the planet.
ETHAN BRONNER: I spent many years in the Middle East, and I have, you know, views on what should happen or what could have happened or what has happened, but I also think that the most important view I have is, is to keep my mind open to the idea that my own view may be wrong.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: He might say bending forks with your mind is part of the job.
ETHAN BRONNER: I don't think it's a question of being more honest to come forward and say this is what I think, because I think that once you announce your view, you persuade yourself in addition to others. Whereas if you force yourself not to come to a conclusion about a difficult question and to leave yourself open, you will stay more open.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Kinsley concedes that the best argument for keeping your views to yourself is--
MICHAEL KINSLEY: That there is a feedback loop. Yes, that's a clever argument, and I wouldn't say it's worthless. The argument that I do think is worthless is the argument that you shouldn't do it, because of the appearances. And I feel pretty strongly that the job of journalism is to make appearances accord with reality, not to make reality accord with appearances.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: As we have seen recently, hypersensitivity to the appearance of objectivity can lead to some lousy reporting. We saw it in the coverage of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. We saw it in the run-up to war. A reporter should be able to call a lie a lie. But the conventions of American journalism, so attentive to appearance, make it tough to say that. In the news pages, official statements come first. Challenges appear after the jump. News analysis arrives in a box deep inside the paper. Not so in European newspapers where news, analysis and commentary commingle -- sometimes in the same story. That's the approach Kinsley prefers.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: They're overtly opinionated, and you can call it bias if you want, except that they're totally open about it, and, and they are judged by their readers with that in mind.
JEREMY O'GRADY: In the British case, there is that tradition of being much more overtly adversarial about things.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jeremy O'Grady is the editor in chief of The Week, in London.
JEREMY O'GRADY: There is a very traditional ding dong between left-leaning and right-leaning papers, which tends to up the ante quite a lot. They do look at each other a lot of the time and take account of their arguments and, and throw them back.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ethan Bronner says that we should not seek a cure for what ails the American media in the European press.
ETHAN BRONNER: I think that will be a big mistake. The editor of Le Monde, for example, will, on a given day, gather his editors around him and say okay, let's have a main editorial saying that the Iraq war is wrong. Let's get a feature out of Baghdad, showing what's problematic about it, and I want a front page story that does something else, similar to that. Whereas it seems to me that we come to work every day saying what's it going to be like today? What elements, what interstices of truth are we going to discover today? And I don't mean this in a naive fashion. I think that we consciously try to keep our perspective on whether it's a good or a bad thing at bay in order to report it as best we can.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But American reporters are people too. They tend to be biased in favor of freedom and democracy. They couldn't get a decent job if they took what could be seen in another nation as a balanced position on socialism, say, or Osama bin Laden. And our values change with the times. What might have passed for balanced coverage of slavery 200 years ago would read like lunacy today. The fact that no one has a corner on the truth could be used to back Kinsley's argument.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: You start with the situation of reporters trying to do their best to be objective, but having views, because they're intelligent human beings. Why don't we just find out what their beliefs are, let the readers know, and let everybody go about their business?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the slipperiness of truth also makes Len Downie's case.
LEN DOWNIE: So many of the most important public issues do not have a clear cut right and wrong, and in fact the public divides evenly over them, and if one of our journalists covering that issue were to have a strong conviction on one side or the other, it would be impossible for them to cover that story fairly. It is very difficult for non-journalists to understand how so many journalists, so many people who choose this profession and particularly, choose to work with the ethics of the Washington Post, have chosen almost to be monks, if you will. To be observers; not participants, but observers. That's what we do here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Although the truth can be elusive, you can often find it in the facts. But while the big stories dominate the front pages of our great newspapers, when it comes to politics, the unpalatable facts are frequently buried deep inside. This year, the cloistered monks at both the Washington Post and the New York Times issued mea culpas for sidelining the truth. Perhaps the problem is not with the principle of objectivity, but with the form. Print who's lying right after the lie, right there on the front page. Tell us the facts, before the jump, and we don't need to know who you're voting for. [MUSIC]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. We don't believe in objectivity any more. We know it isn't possible. And yet the public expects reporters to be objective -- to give them the facts, without infusing them with bias. But to what lengths should reporters go? Some are gay, some are black, some are disabled, some are Christian, Muslim, Jewish -- yes, even Republican. Should they be expected to report fairly on beats that encroach on their personal lives? Bob Steele, an expert in journalistic ethics at the Poynter Institute, says it depends.
BOB STEELE: I do believe it's appropriate for journalists to live meaningful lives. I believe it's appropriate for journalists to practice their faith, if they wish to do so. I believe it's appropriate for journalists to vote, if they wish to do so. There's a big difference in my mind between going to church and becoming an activist in a sense of a public display.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Journalists should refrain from activism, says Steele. If you go to church, don't volunteer in the parish public relations office. If you're disabled, don't lobby your congressman for street ramps. If you're gay, don't march in the parade. Vote if you want to, but don't put a campaign sign on your lawn.
MICHAEL SKOLER: We restrict our reporters' political activity.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Skoler, managing director for news at Minnesota Public Radio, says the policy applies to everyone, from political correspondents to arts reporters.
MICHAEL SKOLER: So that means you shouldn't register as a member of a political party, you shouldn't participate in a Minnesota caucus, you shouldn't attend rallies or show any other public support for a party or a political cause.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: With the exception of restricting party affiliation, which is unusual, his is the policy that prevails in most newsrooms, but just because you don't trumpet your beliefs doesn't mean you don't have 'em.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: This notion that journalists ought to be sort of political, ideological eunuchs who don't have any political views is just hopeless.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Kinsley is editorial and opinion editor for the Los Angeles Times.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: The question isn't whether they hold opinions but whether they suppress those opinions to the extent they can when they do their work.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: When Kinsley was the editor of Slate, he disclosed who he was voting for and invited his reporters and editors to do the same. Mostly, they did. He admits it was less risky for Slate than for other news outlets because Slate is a journal of commentary and analysis, but--
MICHAEL KINSLEY: I think newspapers ought to do it, precisely because it's a fiction to suppose that reporters don't have political views, and it would be healthier and more honest if they simply said what they were.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Len Downie, the editor of the Washington Post, is the poster child for the opposing view --the one that says reporters should keep mum. But he takes it even further. When executive editor Ben Bradlee handed him the reins 20 years ago, he stopped voting.
LEN DOWNIE: Unlike the rest of our staff, I had the last word as to whether or not the paper was being fair in its reporting on these issues, and I didn't want to take a position, even in my own mind on them. I wanted to maintain a completely open mind.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And so, despite all the information that flows through your desk and all you know about the political environment of Washington, DC, you are able to not make up your mind?
LEN DOWNIE: Yes, actually it comes fairly easily to me. I guess it's the nature of my personality to see all sides of most issues. In fact, I'm rather surprised at people that are so definite about things.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: Does he say he can bend forks with his mind? You know, some people can do remarkable things.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Kinsley.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: I mean Len Downie, I admire. But I'm not sure that I would admire him as much if I thought that he was really able to go blank in his mind as easily as he claims to.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The argument against laying your cards, assuming you have any, on the table, is two-fold. One says that if reporters state their conflict of interest right and left, editors would have to bar them from covering certain stories, because the public wouldn't trust them to be fair, even if they were. It's about appearances. We'll return to that one. But there is a second, more intriguing argument -- the one that says that taking a political action makes your views stronger. Minnesota Public Radio's Michael Skoler.
MICHAEL SKOLER: When you kind of put a sign up or put your money where your mouth is, you move from observing to acting. And I think that changes you internally. You can even see it when people purchase a car. You know, how many friends have you had where they finally --they struggle with what car to purchase, and when they finally purchase it, they try to convince all their friends how brilliant their decision was. That, you know, kind of putting a stake in the ground makes you vested.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ethan Bronner, deputy foreign editor of the New York Times, spent decades on difficult beats and managed not to get vested in his stories, even when reporting from the most polarized place on the planet.
ETHAN BRONNER: I spent many years in the Middle East, and I have, you know, views on what should happen or what could have happened or what has happened, but I also think that the most important view I have is, is to keep my mind open to the idea that my own view may be wrong.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: He might say bending forks with your mind is part of the job.
ETHAN BRONNER: I don't think it's a question of being more honest to come forward and say this is what I think, because I think that once you announce your view, you persuade yourself in addition to others. Whereas if you force yourself not to come to a conclusion about a difficult question and to leave yourself open, you will stay more open.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Michael Kinsley concedes that the best argument for keeping your views to yourself is--
MICHAEL KINSLEY: That there is a feedback loop. Yes, that's a clever argument, and I wouldn't say it's worthless. The argument that I do think is worthless is the argument that you shouldn't do it, because of the appearances. And I feel pretty strongly that the job of journalism is to make appearances accord with reality, not to make reality accord with appearances.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: As we have seen recently, hypersensitivity to the appearance of objectivity can lead to some lousy reporting. We saw it in the coverage of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. We saw it in the run-up to war. A reporter should be able to call a lie a lie. But the conventions of American journalism, so attentive to appearance, make it tough to say that. In the news pages, official statements come first. Challenges appear after the jump. News analysis arrives in a box deep inside the paper. Not so in European newspapers where news, analysis and commentary commingle -- sometimes in the same story. That's the approach Kinsley prefers.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: They're overtly opinionated, and you can call it bias if you want, except that they're totally open about it, and, and they are judged by their readers with that in mind.
JEREMY O'GRADY: In the British case, there is that tradition of being much more overtly adversarial about things.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Jeremy O'Grady is the editor in chief of The Week, in London.
JEREMY O'GRADY: There is a very traditional ding dong between left-leaning and right-leaning papers, which tends to up the ante quite a lot. They do look at each other a lot of the time and take account of their arguments and, and throw them back.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ethan Bronner says that we should not seek a cure for what ails the American media in the European press.
ETHAN BRONNER: I think that will be a big mistake. The editor of Le Monde, for example, will, on a given day, gather his editors around him and say okay, let's have a main editorial saying that the Iraq war is wrong. Let's get a feature out of Baghdad, showing what's problematic about it, and I want a front page story that does something else, similar to that. Whereas it seems to me that we come to work every day saying what's it going to be like today? What elements, what interstices of truth are we going to discover today? And I don't mean this in a naive fashion. I think that we consciously try to keep our perspective on whether it's a good or a bad thing at bay in order to report it as best we can.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But American reporters are people too. They tend to be biased in favor of freedom and democracy. They couldn't get a decent job if they took what could be seen in another nation as a balanced position on socialism, say, or Osama bin Laden. And our values change with the times. What might have passed for balanced coverage of slavery 200 years ago would read like lunacy today. The fact that no one has a corner on the truth could be used to back Kinsley's argument.
MICHAEL KINSLEY: You start with the situation of reporters trying to do their best to be objective, but having views, because they're intelligent human beings. Why don't we just find out what their beliefs are, let the readers know, and let everybody go about their business?
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But the slipperiness of truth also makes Len Downie's case.
LEN DOWNIE: So many of the most important public issues do not have a clear cut right and wrong, and in fact the public divides evenly over them, and if one of our journalists covering that issue were to have a strong conviction on one side or the other, it would be impossible for them to cover that story fairly. It is very difficult for non-journalists to understand how so many journalists, so many people who choose this profession and particularly, choose to work with the ethics of the Washington Post, have chosen almost to be monks, if you will. To be observers; not participants, but observers. That's what we do here.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Although the truth can be elusive, you can often find it in the facts. But while the big stories dominate the front pages of our great newspapers, when it comes to politics, the unpalatable facts are frequently buried deep inside. This year, the cloistered monks at both the Washington Post and the New York Times issued mea culpas for sidelining the truth. Perhaps the problem is not with the principle of objectivity, but with the form. Print who's lying right after the lie, right there on the front page. Tell us the facts, before the jump, and we don't need to know who you're voting for. [MUSIC]
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