News Media Innovation Reconsidered. Группа авторов

by which journalists can test values and goals for objectivity. There is only thoughtfulness, the diligent application of rationality, and the asking of probing questions. Journalists should ask: Do the facts of the case support the value judgment? Does the value judgment cohere with my other values and goals? Have I come to my judgment with a sufficient degree of critical distance? Do I provide reasons for pursing such goals that are acceptable, or at least understandable, to other rational agents?

      But, what about journalists’ attachments to groups? If the claim is only that journalists have attachments to groups, then democratically engaged journalism agrees. But there are stronger claims made in this area: that journalists should or should not have attachments. Activist journalists support the former claim. Neutral journalists subscribe to the latter claim.

Democratically engaged journalism thinks it is ethically permissible and often desirable that journalists report or opine for specific groups, such as gays, libertarians, or Catholics. Such forms of journalism provide additional perspectives on issues. However, group-attached journalists need to report objectively on their favored groups and causes. Moreover, they also have to rank the priority of their group attachments. Journalists should make primary their attachment to the common good of the public as a whole. A commitment to the public at large regulates and trumps attachments to more specific groups.

      Why stress the ranking of attachments? Because there is, in group-attached journalism, the constant danger that bias toward one’s group can override one’s fundamental duty to inform the general public. Where serving a particular group clashes with serving the public, the latter must prevail. If it is in the public interest to inform society about problems within a minority or marginalized group, it is the ethical duty of any journalist to report these facts. For example, activist journalists who support an environmental group may not report inconvenient counter-facts to their group’s position. But attachments can be ethically dubious. One can be, for example, a committed neo-Nazi. Committed journalism can be a journalism of inflexible ideology, or of faction.

      Meanwhile, democratically engaged journalism has a positive view of emotions, when used properly. Emotions in general are an important form of access to the world. They have cognitive functions. They help us know the world and pay attention to aspects we might ignore. Feelings of injustice can motivate courageous journalism, and empathy can prompt journalists to pay attention to people in distress. The issue is to be attentive to the emotions we have as journalists and develop healthy habits of emotions. There should be no call to repress emotions in general. Better discussions of emotion are much needed in journalism ethics.³¹

      Psychologists have studied how emotions are necessary to rationality and to good thinking. Antonio Damasio, for example, has found that when brain injuries rob people of certain emotional capacities, they become unable to plan rationally or to react appropriately to other people.³² Adam Morton asks us to imagine the hypothetical example³³ of a brilliant young scientist who is capable of working efficiently in her field but will never make fundamental advances because she lacks the empowering emotions of curiosity and awe at nature.³⁴ It is like being a musical savant with great technical prowess but lacking a love of music.

      Moreover, my analysis of pragmatic objectivity presumes the importance of volition for rational inquiry. People must be willing to adopt the objective stance, with its restrictions and methodological demands. One must want to be objective. One needs a passion for rationality and truth. Similarly, people who irrationally and dogmatically refuse to alter their biased opinions, despite strong counter-evidence, is explained, psychologically, by the force of volition, emotion, and desire. Such people may defend their views by exercising what I call a “fake” rationality. They fly under the colors of genuine rationality, by showing a false concern for truth, fact, and rigorous method.

Both individuals and societies face a choice between embracing or not embracing objectivity in the formation of their beliefs and in their public deliberation. Ultimately, upon that choice, rests the future of rational, egalitarian democracy.

      Cold-Blooded Neutrality?

      A widespread belief among the legion of critics of objectivity is that objectivity is neither desirable nor possible because it requires humans to turn themselves into perfectly neutral and emotionless analysts—cold-blooded spectators on the urgent issues of life. Why should this be so? As noted, emotions motivate good thinking and inquiry.

      Perhaps the classic portrait of the cold-blooded “rational” person is Thomas Gradgrind, the school board superintendent in Charles Dickens’s novel, Hard Times (1854), who treats all questions, including interactions with his children, in terms of numbers, facts, prosperity, and expected utility. Critics of bloodless objectivity then ask rhetorically: Who would support an attitude like that? The response is: No one should; and, luckily, no one has to. Objectivity does not require people to become a “logic machine”—a human Dr. Spock.³⁵

      Emotional response to the world is an intrinsic part of ethics. In ethics, appeals to compassion and empathy can and should be part of rational arguments about ethical decisions. Moreover, the best practices of objectivity often combine partiality and impartiality. In a trial, the partiality of the prosecutor and the defense attorney (and the parties they represent) occurs within a larger impartial context— a judge or jury that subjects partial arguments to the test of objective evidence and to the impartial rules of law. Ideally, what is fair and objective emerges during a trial where partialities make their case and are judged by objective norms.

      The norms of objectivity were not constructed because its creators thought most humans could be “empty” of bias. The reverse is true. The norms were constructed because of an acute awareness of human bias, because it is evident. Shallow critics of objectivity never tire of saying: “We all have biases.” Rather than conclude that objectivity is impossible because bias is universal, scientists, journalists, and others concluded the opposite: we biased humans need the discipline of objectivity to reduce the ineliminable presence of bias.

      Impartiality does not require a strong neutrality or cold-blooded detachment. Impartiality is part of the stance of a person—professor, judge, journalist—who is active and engaged. Impartiality does not mean that one has no partialities. It does not mean that one does not feel the tug of one’s own biases and interests. It does not mean one must withdraw from agency, detached like the neutral gear in my car. It does not require that one can never express a judgment, conclusion, or perspective. What impartiality demands is that a person is willing and capable of not letting their partialities unduly bias their judgment. In my view, the best way to ensure one’s partialities are not biasing one’s thinking is to adopt the stance and standards of pragmatic objectivity. Genuine inquiry derives from an impartial search for the truth, “regardless of what the color of that truth may be.”³⁶

The best journalism is a judicious blend of two fundamental impulses: the emotion-laden romantic impulse and the logic-directed objective impulse. The romantic impulse consists of the passion for interesting stories and substantial revelations. It is the impulse to seek out stories that give the journalist an opportunity for creative writing, interpretation, and self-expression. The objective impulse is the concern to verify what the romantic impulse finds.

      Conclusion: Duties for Democratic Journalism

      The nature of the global media sphere entails that democratically engaged journalism should take on a number of tasks. Democratically engaged journalists protect egalitarian democracy by honoring at least four duties:

      1 to advance democratic dialog across racial and economic divides;

      2 to explain and defend pluralistic liberal democracy against its foes;

      3 to act as a watchdog for the public against extreme or intolerant media;

      4 to develop guidelines for covering democracy-weakening trends.

      Let us delve a little deeper into each of the four duties.

      Duty 1: Dialog across divides

      Journalists