Outside Voices: Dan Gillmor On The New Principles Of A More Diverse Media Ecosystem
On my blog in early 2005 I posted an essay-in-progress entitled, "The End of Objectivity (Version 0.91)." I suggested that the journalism of the new century would be better served if we all abandoned the worthy ideal of objectivity and replaced it with a collection of principles that might add up to something even better.
In giving the piece a half-facetious version number, I was calling attention to another truth of tomorrow's journalism. In a craft that's shifting from lecture to conversation, where what I like to call the "former audience" is becoming an integral part of the process, the publication (or broadcast or whatever) is not The End. It is somewhere in the middle of an emergent system in which we all can keep learning, and teaching.
The search for objectivity makes some sense in a media ecosystem that lacks diversity. If a few voices overwhelm all the others, there is a public interest in playing stories as allegedly down the middle as possible -- not favoring one side over the other (or others, to be more precise, as there are rarely just two sides to any issue). There have been sound business reasons to be "objective," too, not least that a newspaper or network didn't want to make large parts of its audience angry.
But as the media ecosystem grows more diverse, we should rethink such assumptions. What we should not abandon, however, are the principles -- including at least one that hasn't had much support in the journalism world until recently -- that will be valuable to journalists of all kinds in the Digital Age.
Most bloggers and other people using the increasingly democratized tools of production, distribution and access don't consider themselves journalists. But to the extent that they participate in the multi-directional, many-to-many global conversation in a journalistic way, they may find it worthwhile to understand why the tenets that have served professionals so well for so long are worth keeping around even as we collectively invent new ways of telling and hearing those stories.
With one exception, which I'll discuss in a minute, these principles, which basically add up to being honorable, are widely understood and accepted by the professionals. (Contrary to the views of some who see boosting citizen journalism as tearing down the traditional model, I hope for an ecosystem that's more diverse and vibrant and competitive, not to replace one flawed system with another.) Of course, some organizations put more value on them than others, but readers/listeners/viewers are pretty smart about sorting that out.
Several tenets are as old as newsgathering and story-telling. Thoroughness adds weight that shallowness can't approach. Accuracy says we work hard to get it right; forthrightly correct our mistakes when we don't; and say what we don't know, not just what we do.
Fairness means, among other things, listening to different viewpoints and incorporating them into the journalism. It does not mean stenographic parroting of lies or distortions to achieve that lazy equivalence that leads some journalists to give the same weight to opposing quotes when the facts overwhelmingly support one side. Fairness is also about letting people respond when they believe you are wrong. I definitely learn more from people who think I'm wrong than from those who agree with me.
Independence is easier for people who are paid to be journalists. But it's about more than operating "without fear or favor;" it's also about not letting one's assumptions rule when contrary evidence undermines them: independence of thought is crucial, too.
Those principles will, of course, get no argument from traditional journalism organizations. Not so for transparency, at least not until quite recently. The practice of big-time journalism, in particular, has been the classic black box where information went in and our oracular lectures came out. That stance was borne of arrogance and, in some cases, necessity. But the nearly absolute opacity of the past is no longer tenable.
No one can plausibly argue with the idea that journalists should disclose certain things, such as financial conflicts of interest. But should journalists of all kinds be expected to make their lives open books? How open? I'm not suggesting that professional reporters scan and post on the Web the scrawlings from their notebooks. But there's nothing wrong with acknowledging our biases, whether personal and institutional, and letting readers make up their own minds about whether to trust what we then report.
With bloggers, biases tend to be up front, though the blogosphere is hardly free of sleazy manipulation. Plenty of what has gone on behind the Big Media curtain, meanwhile, can and should be revealed, in part to help the audience understand how the process works. In a world where saying "Trust me" without evidence is an invitation to mistrust and ridicule, we can actually boost authority by being more open. The existence of this CBS blog is an example of one organization's growing recognition of the new reality.
People have the brains to sort things out when given sufficient information. So let's worry a little less about objectivity, that worthy but unattainable mirage. We can be more productive by focusing on other goals.
New Yorkers: I'll be talking about these and other issues next Thursday evening, April 27, at Columbia University's Journalism School, where I'll be giving the annual Hearst New Media Lecture.