The New York Times
December 12, 1994, Monday, Late Edition - Final

Fairness, bias and judgment: grappling with the knotty issue of objectivity in
journalism. 

By William Glaberson 

   JAY ROSEN, a journalism professor and director of the Project on Public
Life and the Press at New York University, is a press critic who often draws
criticism from reporters and editors by saying journalism needs to rethink its
fundamental canon: objectivity. Mr. Rosen sat down last week for a
conversation about the way the press uses, or abuses, the claim to
objectivity. Here are some excerpts: 

   Q.  What is journalistic objectivity? 

    A.  It is the value of fairness, which is extremely important. It's the
ethic of restraining your own biases, which is also important.  . . . It's the
idea that journalism can't be the voice of any particular party or sect, which
is also important. All those things are very honorable, very important. What
is insidious and crippling about objectivity is when journalists say: "We just
present you with facts. We don't make judgments. We don't have any values
ourselves." That is dangerous and wrongheaded. 

   Q.  Do you think we make judgments? 

   A.  Of course. And I think you think you make judgments all the time. . . .
I don't think the kind of bias journalists are usually accused of --
ideological bias, personal animus -- is generally worrisome. Far more subtle
and more dangerous are the conventions of journalism: the ways in which
journalists go about dividing the world, framing public life for us, picturing
the world of politics. There are values and assumptions hidden in those
decisions that are extremely important to name and to debate, and I think, at
this point, to change. 

   Q.  What is behind that framing? 

   A.  In every area of coverage, from politics to sports, there are these
kinds of lenses. When we talk about politics and public life, the frames
journalists employ are very identifiable and narrow. There is, for example,
the strategy lens: seeing everything through the eyes of the tactician. There
is the emphasis on winning and the game aspects of politics. 

   Q.  And what does that have to do with objectivity? 
 
   A.  Objectivity officially declares that none of this goes on because,
officially, the description of what journalists do and what they ought to do
is present facts. 

   Q.  And is that not what we ought to do? 

   A.  That is not a description of what's possible in journalism. When
journalists say, "All we do is present facts," that is misleading. 

   Q.  Do we mislead intentionally? 

   A.  Sometimes, to avoid criticism, yes. To escape from discussions about
your craft, yes. To sever the conversation about journalism and its values
from the rest of the political culture, yes. Journalism doesn't admit that
criticism is legitimate. One of the most powerful things about the declaration
"I'm objective," is the hidden corollary: "You're not." 

   Q.  Who's you? 

   A.  Everybody but the journalist. So everybody who comes at the press with
a dissatisfaction, with a complaint, or even with an idea, is seen by
journalists as subjective. And those who are "subjective," who are interested,
who have a stake, are almost by definition unqualified to pass judgment on the
"objective" operation of the press. So one of the most insidious effects of
objectivity is that it creates a world in which journalists can live without
criticism, because they're the only judges of what's objective. 

   Q.  But isn't that one of the reasons journalism exists, to be a third
party, the Fourth Estate? 

   A.  If you're saying good journalism is independent journalism, I agree
completely. However, I also believe that an objective press has to be in
conversation with the rest of the country and the political culture about
what's a good lens to take. 

   Q.  But the reality of the rest of the culture is that it's highly partisan
and the press ought not to be. 

   A.  Ah, but see that view of "everybody else but us is highly partisan" is
itself an artifact of the ideology or doctrine of objectivity. 

   Q.  Isn't it the case that there's a great deal of partisanship? 

   A.  Yes. 

   Q.  And don't you need somebody who is not partisan to provide the
information so the partisans can function? 

   A.  Yes, you need an independent source of information in politics. The
issue is: How should we describe what this independent institution does? If we
describe it simply as providing facts, we're going to miss a lot of what this
institution does.  . . . The political drama given to us by the press is
dominated by professionals in politics, by insiders, by discussions of
strategy and technique and manipulation. It is almost exclusively a story of
conflict and controversy within the political class, and it is increasingly
out of touch with the rest of the country and out of step with the problems we
face as a democracy. 

   Q.  The press often feels it should stay as far out of the story as
possible, doesn't it? 

   A.  That is a fantasy that journalists have about themselves. If you look
at Washington political culture, journalists are completely involved in that
culture in a whole variety of ways. They are constantly involved in what gets
on the public agenda, who's getting attention. 

   Q.  What would you call the role the press plays in politics? 

   A.  I would say the press is framing the story of public life for us in a
particular way. It's inescapable. It's in the nature of what they do. And it's
not working. . . . It's not working for citizens. 

   Q.  And the press won't admit it? 

   A.  They won't admit it because they would face a very different criticism
of what they do, which they don't know how to deal with. It would require them
to rethink a lot of their most basic assumptions, and it would require them to
take a certain basic level of responsibility for how we conduct ourselves as a
public society. At the root of objectivity is the wish to be free of the
results of what you do.