It’s All Relative, Except When It Shouldn’t Be
Let me get subjective about objectivity for a minute. I got to thinking about it while reading some of the reaction to the launch of the Open Source Media project. Giving some unsolicited advice, BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis had this to say:
When Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) last week called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, his words led the evening network newscasts, were splashed all over the nation’s front-pages and garnered hostile Republican reaction. What happened next was fascinating. As we detailed last week, many strong supporters of the war yelled bias at the media’s portrayal of the story pointing out that Murtha had long criticized the war. They’ve kept the drumbeat going.
Now here’s where I have problems with attacks on the idea that the media can achieve a perspective that is unbiased, if not totally objective: If we can agree that there is something called “newsworthy,” then Murtha’s speech qualified.
Even a cursory glimpse at the record demonstrates that Murtha’s comments were by definition “newsworthy.” Here is a highly decorated war hero calling for the end of America’s participation in the Iraq war. Has Murtha in the past been highly critical of execution in Iraq? You bet he has. But when he said the war was “unwinnable” if changes weren’t made, he actually supported sending MORE troops. For Murtha to call for an end to the war is, in fact, “news,” as our society currently uses that word.
Jarvis isn’t alone in making the argument for the death of “objectivity” as an idea but since he’s a friend, we’ll pick on him. In Jarvis-world, with no objective criteria for judging events, how does one argue with the conservative advocate who says Murtha’s speech was not news? You can’t, because there’s no common meaning to the word, “news.” It’s total relativism, it trivializes everything and ignores the real world, commonly understood.
Advocacy that tries to convince you that the Murtha speech wasn’t news is Orwellian, it’s dishonest. An advocate who will argue that Murtha is wrong, misguided or even a pant-load is honest. But in Jarvis-world, you can’t make distinctions like that because, well, everything is relative. Mostly, the Murtha-isn’t-news drumbeat comes from ideologues who, in days of yore, would have been printing pamphlets, distributing fliers or attending demonstrations. It’s nothing new and nothing reserved for one viewpoint or another.
Following the path that Jarvis and others in this age of instant communication and blog-frenzies however, leads us potentially into a Bizarro-world where up is down and down is up, depending on one’s “worldview.” The real results might find the “news” sounding something like this:
“Stop trying to act fair and balanced; have a worldview and be proud of it.”It struck me that Jarvis had almost the exact same advice for PE when we launched our efforts here, writing at the time:
“Try this on for size: I think there’s no such thing as an objective blogger. Or you’re probably not blogging. You’re probably not talking with people, eye to eye. We’re about to kill the myth that journalists can be thoroughly objective; let’s not start trying to accrete that artificial ethic to blogs.”Looking back at some of the stories and topics we’ve take on, I think most readers would come to the conclusion that PE has established a voice and a worldview. I also think a strong part of that worldview is a respect for the truth – or at least a search for the truth. But that process is messy and many times does not lend itself to easy or clear-cut answers. And some give no quarter to the real truth no matter how clear it is. The past week provides a great example of what happens when worldviews collide.
When Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) last week called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, his words led the evening network newscasts, were splashed all over the nation’s front-pages and garnered hostile Republican reaction. What happened next was fascinating. As we detailed last week, many strong supporters of the war yelled bias at the media’s portrayal of the story pointing out that Murtha had long criticized the war. They’ve kept the drumbeat going.
Now here’s where I have problems with attacks on the idea that the media can achieve a perspective that is unbiased, if not totally objective: If we can agree that there is something called “newsworthy,” then Murtha’s speech qualified.
Even a cursory glimpse at the record demonstrates that Murtha’s comments were by definition “newsworthy.” Here is a highly decorated war hero calling for the end of America’s participation in the Iraq war. Has Murtha in the past been highly critical of execution in Iraq? You bet he has. But when he said the war was “unwinnable” if changes weren’t made, he actually supported sending MORE troops. For Murtha to call for an end to the war is, in fact, “news,” as our society currently uses that word.
Jarvis isn’t alone in making the argument for the death of “objectivity” as an idea but since he’s a friend, we’ll pick on him. In Jarvis-world, with no objective criteria for judging events, how does one argue with the conservative advocate who says Murtha’s speech was not news? You can’t, because there’s no common meaning to the word, “news.” It’s total relativism, it trivializes everything and ignores the real world, commonly understood.
Advocacy that tries to convince you that the Murtha speech wasn’t news is Orwellian, it’s dishonest. An advocate who will argue that Murtha is wrong, misguided or even a pant-load is honest. But in Jarvis-world, you can’t make distinctions like that because, well, everything is relative. Mostly, the Murtha-isn’t-news drumbeat comes from ideologues who, in days of yore, would have been printing pamphlets, distributing fliers or attending demonstrations. It’s nothing new and nothing reserved for one viewpoint or another.
Following the path that Jarvis and others in this age of instant communication and blog-frenzies however, leads us potentially into a Bizarro-world where up is down and down is up, depending on one’s “worldview.” The real results might find the “news” sounding something like this:
“Good evening, welcome to ---. Tonight, a courageous and unassailable leader put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush and his illegal and immoral war in Iraq. Congressman Murtha bravely did what all Americans desperately want and that is call for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. We start tonight with the joyous celebrations in the streets of America.”And, like this from another outlet:
“As we close our broadcast tonight, a word about a story you might have heard of elsewhere today. Old, clueless and clearly demented, Congressman John Murtha today shocked the nation by symbolically linking arms with the small and traitorous minority of the public against the war by calling for – amazingly – the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq. But the move has apparently backfired on Murtha as even the terrorists he seeks to help are disheartened by the rejection of such lunacy by the American people.”A stretch? Perhaps. But there seems to be a great rush to jump aboard a movement that could very well lead us in this very direction. As we seek to destroy the model of “objectivity,” we’d best be thinking just what to replace it with.
