News Media Innovation Reconsidered. Группа авторов

stories are interpretations and seek a way to test them. One way to test them, and only one, is whether a story fits the facts available. The story also has to cohere conceptually, logically, and be consistent with existing knowledge and theory. A story needs to be able to withstand strenuous public scrutiny and the questions raised by alternate perspectives. The criteria by which we evaluate stories are plural.

Moreover, the use of facts is a complex matter, requiring us to properly interpret the meaning of facts. Facts need context, and context is a matter of interpretation. For instance, government statistics about the rate of unemployment and police “facts” about how well they are fighting crime in their community should not be accepted (or reported) at face value. Journalists should use statistical (and other) methods to interpret the data. In health reporting, journalists should compare the cancer rate of a group in a clinical trial with background levels of cancer in the general population. In political reporting, the facts of opinion polls are worthless unless correctly interpreted. Often, getting the correct interpretation of the facts is as important as knowing the “bare” facts. We need to select facts for relevance and importance, organize them into coherent statistical patterns, and place them in their proper context. Odd or contentious facts may be overridden or doubted by other considerations, such as coherence with existing knowledge. Nevertheless, empirical facts originate in the deliverances of our senses and therefore anchor our conceptual systems in experience.

      There is perhaps no more succinct debunking of the idea that isolated facts have a special power by themselves than John Dewey’s introduction to The Public and Its Problems.²⁷ In a few pages, Dewey throws cold water on the idea that facts “carry their meaning along on themselves on their face.” There can be disagreement on the facts or on what they mean. There may be insufficient facts to establish a claim. The same facts may support rival interpretations. Purported facts may be false or manipulated. Dewey points out that a few recalcitrant facts cannot force a person to accept or abandon a particular theory. Neo-pragmatist Willard V.O. Quine argued that facts never “prove” an empirical theory. There is always the possibility of an equally good, rival theory. Just as facts “under-determine” scientific theory, so they under-determine our news reports.²⁸

      Yet, despite these cautions about a simplistic view of facts, pragmatic objectivity in journalism does not dismiss the importance of facts, properly understood. To the contrary, it recognizes, for instance, the importance of facts to investigative journalists in their efforts to expose government corruption. Pragmatic objectivity does not share the post-modern skepticism that there are no facts. Rather, it rejects the mythical idea of “pure” facts or a pure “given” in experience that is known without any interpretation, and the mythical idea that such facts are the sole and sufficient basis for evaluating the objectivity of reports. Pragmatic objectivity regards facts as creatures of interpretation and conceptual schemes. What we consider a fact depends on our belief systems, worldview, and epistemic norms.

      Timid Reporting or Biased Engagement

Democratically engaged journalism claims to be a third way between neutrality and partisanship. However, some readers may still worry that it can be used to justify biased “engagement.” In fact, I claim that democratically engaged journalism has the means to avoid two ills of contemporary journalism: (1) an excessive timidity in opposing falsehood and manipulative communicators in the public sphere due to a commitment to neutrality and detachment; and (2) an aggressive, biased engagement, where people use journalism to promote dubious causes by using dubious means, such as twisting the facts or circulating conspiracy theories. That there are unethical forms of journalistic engagement is clear from Figure 2.1, which contains such unethical uses as propaganda.

      With respect to timidity, the negative consequences of subscribing to a journalism ethics tethered to a strict neutrality that reports “just the facts” is clear from watching mainstream news organizations' attempt to deal with false or intolerant statements by leaders or groups. For example, since Donald Trump was elected president, American mainstream reporters, seeking to honor a traditional news objectivity, have twisted themselves into verbal pretzels trying not to call an outrageous statement by Trump racist, or hate speech, or misogynist. Better to see if someone else, like a liberal professor, will say so. At the same time, partisans use the media’s commitment to “balance” to create false moral equivalencies between racist and anti-racist groups.

      Trump, in July of 2019, told four Congresswomen of color that they should “go home” because they criticized US policy, even though all were American citizens. His storm of tweets against the women received much play. Rather than call his comments racist, CBS and the Times settled for a euphemism. It called them “racially charged” speech. Others said the comments might affect “racial divisions” but stopped short of saying they were racist. Other outlets fell back on the plaintive cry, “this is not who we are,” which only fails to come to grips with the depth of racism in the country. In this topsy-turvy world, Trump supporters then used the media’s notion of balance to get publicity for their accusation that it was the women who were racist.²⁹ So, I ask: Whence this reticence to state the obvious, that such statements are racist, when the “go-back-where-you-came-from” slur is an age-old racist adage? It is a longstanding strategy of American white supremacists to paint people of color and non-Christians as unwelcome strangers in their own country. The answer is: a commitment to a narrow conception of good reporting as necessarily neutral and “facts only.” This conception makes it very difficult for reporters to call a president a liar or a racist, even if there is evidence for that charge.

The ideology of democratically engaged journalism does not hold the extreme positions that reporters should never be neutral, or should report continually in an opposition mode, calling people liars or racists, or taking sides in a prejudicial manner. There are types of stories, such as a criminal trial, where reporters should attempt a neutral description of the evidence presented by both the prosecutor and the defense lawyer. Moreover, journalists should swing into their strong, oppositional stance where the situation requires such a position, e.g., if Trump refuses to step down as president even though he were to lose the next federal election. In crucial cases where anti-democratic ideas are advanced, journalists should greet it with active opposition, not balance. But not every story requires such engagement. However, where principles of equalitarian democracy are at stake, journalists should not be hampered by scruples over neutrality or reporting “just the facts.”³⁰ If a statement is a lie or racist, then say so. If a spokesperson’s description of refugees is factually inaccurate, misleading, and demeaning, then say so. And say so in news coverage and analysis, not just in editorials inside newspapers. Just be ready to back it up with solid evidence, not bias or partisanship.

      Values, Attachments, and Emotions

      How does objectivity co-exist with values, goals, attachments, and emotions? Are not these elements of human psychology subjective. Do they not bias inquiry?

      The answer is that emotions, values, and goals are necessary elements of thinking and inquiry. They can empower objective investigations, or they can lead to bias. It all depends on how we employ the volitional and emotional parts of our human nature.

      The importance of finding a way to mix value, emotion, and objectivity in journalism is clear. The daily news is full of implicit or explicit value judgments—tales of winners and losers, good guys and bad guys. Reporters cannot avoid evaluative language in reporting on unfair bosses, brutal massacres, vicious murders, notorious pedophiles, and dangerous terrorists. Journalists employ evaluations in selecting credible sources or displaying skepticism toward a new “scientific” theory. Journalists report on gruesome scenes of disaster, and can themselves be affected emotionally. To enter journalism is to enter an emotive, value-laden craft. New journalists learn more than the skills of writing news and gathering information. They acculturate into a realm of reporting routines, news values, and peer attitudes. Thus, a theory of objectivity should take into account these value-laden activities. Democratically engaged journalism starts from the premise that all journalists have values and goals. Therefore, the issue is not whether journalists have goals but what goals they seek and how they seek them.

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