Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 7:1 (2008) ► pp.136–155

The limits of objective reporting

| University of Hull

The aim of this study is to scrutinize the assumption that objective reporting is good reporting, is ethical reporting. I do this by reflecting on different dimensions that are associated with the concept of objectivity: (1) accuracy; (2) truthfulness; (3) fairness and balance, and (4) moral neutrality. It is asserted that in many cases journalists are not objective in their reporting either because they consciously prefer not to be or because they are being manipulated by their sources. I close by asserting that the values of not harming others and respecting others should play a prominent part in the considerations of journalists. These are basic ethical standards that sometimes require normative reporting. Consequently, morally neutral coverage of hate speech and racism is a bad idea. It is a false and wrong conception. Subjectivity is preferable to objectivity when the media cover illiberal and anti-democratic phenomena.

Keywords: accuracy, balance, fairness, hate speech, moral neutrality, objectivity, racism, terror, truthfulness
Published online: 26 May 2008
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.7.1.07alm
References (79)
Abel, Richard L
1998 Speaking Respect, Respecting Speech. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench
1984 19 C.C.C. (3d) 254.
Allan, Stuart
(Ed 2005 Journalism: Critical Issues. Berkshire: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Douglas
1987 How managing editors view and deal with ethical issues? Journalism Quarterly 641. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Atton, Chris
2003 Alternative Media. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Barlow, Maude, & Winter, James
1997 The Big Black Book. Toronto: Stoddart.Google Scholar
Blankenburg, William B., & Walden, Ruth
1977 Objectivity, interpretation, and economy in reporting. Journalism Quarterly54.Google Scholar
Boeyink, David E
1994 How effective are codes of ethics? A look at three newsrooms. Journalism Quarterly71.Google Scholar
Bunton, Kristie
1998 Social responsibility in covering community: A narrative case analysis. Journal of Mass Media Ethics 13(4). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Calloway, Larry
2003 The lost compass of objectivity. Albuquerque Journal (December 14).
Caputo, John D
(Ed 1997 Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
CBC
1993 Journalistic Standards and Practices. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.Google Scholar
Cohen-Almagor, Raphael
1994 The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
2000 Language and reality at the end of life. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics 28(3).Google Scholar
2001 Ethical considerations in media coverage of hate speech in Canada. Review of Constitutional Studies 6(1).Google Scholar
2005 Media coverage of terror: Troubling episodes and suggested guidelines. Canadian Journal of Communication 30(3). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Condit, Celeste Michelle, & Selzer, J. Ann
1985 The rhetoric of objectivity in the newspaper coverage of a murder trial. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2(3). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cotler, Irwin
2000 Holocaust denial, equality and harm: Boundaries of liberty and tolerance in a liberal democracy. In: Raphael Cohen-Almagor (Ed.). Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Crawford, N.A
1924 The Ethics of Journalism. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Brent
2003 Rethinking Objectivity. Columbia Journalism Review (July-August).Google Scholar
Durham, Meenakshi Gigi
1998 On the relevance standpoint epistemology to the practice of journalism: The case for ‘strong objectivity’. Communication Theory 8(2). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald
1976 Taking Rights Seriously. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
1985 Liberalism. In: Ronald Dworkin (Ed.). A Matter of Principle. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Elliot, Deni
(Ed 1986 Responsible Journalism. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Fink, Conrad C
1995 Media Ethics. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon (Second Edition).Google Scholar
Foot, Philippa
2003 Natural Goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fowler, Roger
et al. 1979 Language and Control. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
1991 Language in the News. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Frost, Chris
2000 Media Ethics and Self-Regulation. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Gabriele, Sandra
2003 Politics and the American press: The rise of objectivity, 1865—1920. Canadian Journal of Communication 28(2). Available: http://www.cjc-online.ca/viewarticle.php?id=793 . DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gans, Herbert J
1979 Deciding What’s News. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Gibbons, Thomas
1998 Regulating the Media. London: Sweet and Maxwell (Second Edition).Google Scholar
Glasser, Theodore L
1984 Objectivity Precludes Responsibility. The Quill (February).
Glasser, Theodore L., & Ettema, James S
1989 Investigative journalism and the moral order. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 6(1). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Green, Bill
1981 Janet’s world. The Washington Post (April 19).
Hackett, Robert A
1984 Decline of a paradigm? Bias and objectivity in news media studies. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 1(3). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hackett, Robert A., & Zhao, Yuezhi
1998 Sustaining Democracy? Journalism and the Politics of Objectivity. Toronto: Garamond Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harcup, Tony
2004 Journalism: Principles and Practice. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Herman, Edward S., & Chomsky, Noam
1995 Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Hewitt, Christopher
1992 Public’s perspectives. In: David L. Paletz and Alex P. Schmid (Eds). Terrorism and the Media. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
2003 Understanding Terrorism in America: From the Klan to Al Qaeda. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirst, Martin, & Roger Patching
2005 Journalism Ethics: Arguments and Cases. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hursthouse, Rosalind
1999 On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel
1969 Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishers.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Richard L
2002 Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865—1920. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kariel, Herbert G., and Rosenvall, Lynn A
1983 Cultural affinity displayed in Canadian daily newspapers. Journalism Quarterly 601. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Keeble, Richard
2001 Ethics for Journalists. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2005 Is virtuous journalism possible? A critical overview of journalism ethics. In: Richard Keeble (Ed.). Print Journalism: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kelly, Michael
(Ed 1994 Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault/Habermas Debate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kieran, Matthew
(Ed 1998 Media Ethics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Laitila, Tiina
1995 Journalistic codes of ethics in Europe. European Journal of Communication 10(4). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, John
2003 Is that a fact? Financial Times (March 8).
Mahtani, Minelle
2005 Gendered News Practices. In: Stuart Allan (Ed.). Journalism: Critical Issues. Berkshire: Open University Press.Google Scholar
Matsuda, Mari
1989 Public response to racist speech: Considering the victim’s story. Michigan L. Rev. 871. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McManus, John
1991 How objective is local television news? Mass Communication Review 18(3).Google Scholar
Merrill, John C
1985 Is ethical journalism simply objective reporting? Journalism Quarterly 62(1—2).Google Scholar
Mill, J.S
1948 Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government. London: J.M. Dent, Everyman’s edition.Google Scholar
Mindich, David T.Z
1998 Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Moon, Richard
1992 Drawing lines in a culture of prejudice: R. v. Keegstra and the restriction of hate propaganda. U.B.C. L. Rev.
2000 The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of Expression. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Moran, Mayo
1994 Talking about hate speech: A rhetorical analysis of American and Canadian approaches to the Regulation of Hate Speech. Wisconsin L. Rev. 61.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas
1980 The limits of objectivity. In: Sterling M. McMurrin (Ed.). The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Newman, Stephen
(Ed 2004 Constitutional Politics in Canada and the United States. New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert
1981 Philosophical Explanations. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
R. v. Keegstra
1990 S.C.J. No. 131.
Rabinow, Paul & Rose, Nikolas
(Eds) 2003 The Essential Foucault. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Reese, Stephen D
1990 The news paradigm and the ideology of objectivity: A Socialist at the Wall Street Journal. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rivers, William L., Schramm, Wilbur and Christians, Clifford G
1980 Responsibility in Mass Communication. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Rosen, Jay
1993 Beyond objectivity. Nieman Reports (Winter).
Sanders, Karen
2005 Ethics in journalism: False dichotomies, uncertain goals. Ethical Space 2(1).Google Scholar
Schiller, Dan
1981 Objectivity and the News. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Schmid, A.P
1989 Terrorism and the media: The ethics of publicity. Terrorism & Political Violence 1(4). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schudson, Michael
1978 Discovering the News. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
1990 Origins of the Ideal of Objectivity in the Professions. New York and London: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
1995 The Power of the News. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stensaas, Harlan S
1986 Development of the objectivity ethic in the U.S. daily newspapers. Journal of Mass Media Ethics 2(1).Google Scholar
Tsesis, Alexander
2002 Destructive Messages. New York and London: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Tuchman, Gaye
1972 Objectivity as strategic ritual: An examination of newsmen’s notions of objectivity. American Journal of Sociology 77(4). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1978 Making News. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Cited by (19)

Cited by 19 other publications

Benham, Janelle
2020. Best Practices for Journalistic Balance: Gatekeeping, Imbalance and the Fake News Era. Journalism Practice 14:7 ► pp. 791 ff. DOI logo
Choi, Sujin
2019. An exploratory approach to the computational quantification of journalistic values. Online Information Review 43:1 ► pp. 133 ff. DOI logo
Thomas, Ryan J.
2019. Objectivity. In The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Ikeanyibe, Okey Marcellus, Christian Chukwuebuka Ezeibe, Peter Oluchukwu Mbah & Chikodiri Nwangwu
2018. Political campaign and democratisation. Journal of Language and Politics 17:1 ► pp. 92 ff. DOI logo
McCaffrey, Raymond
2017. Dueling Scandals: Rolling Stone, Brian Williams, and Repairing a Damaged Paradigm. Journal of Media Ethics 32:4 ► pp. 221 ff. DOI logo
Moges, Mulatu
2017. Why Silence? Reporting Internal Conflicts in Ethiopian. SSRN Electronic Journal DOI logo
Moges, Mulatu Alemayehu
2017. Why Silence? Reporting Internal Conflict in Ethiopian Newspapers. SSRN Electronic Journal DOI logo
Aucoin, James
2016. The imperative of personal journalism: James Agee andLet Us Now Praise Famous Men. Journalism 17:3 ► pp. 281 ff. DOI logo
Gerken, Fynn, Sarah F. Van der Land & Toni G.L.A. van der Meer
2016. Crisis in the air: An investigation of AirAsia’s crisis-response effectiveness based on frame alignment. Public Relations Review 42:5 ► pp. 879 ff. DOI logo
Jakaza, Ernest & Marianna Visser
2016. ‘Subjectivity’ in newspaper reports on ‘controversial’ and ‘emotional’ debates: An appraisal and controversy analysis. Language Matters 47:1 ► pp. 3 ff. DOI logo
Labasse, Bertrand
2015. Du journalisme comme une mésoépistémologie. Communication :Vol. 33/1 DOI logo
Ware, Jennifer, Geri Alumit Zeldes & Jennifer Hoewe
2015. News as a Cultural Mirror: Historically Black Newspapers Reflecting Public Views of Loving v. Virginia (1967). Journal of Social Issues 71:4 ► pp. 693 ff. DOI logo
George, Cherian
2014. Journalism and the Politics of Hate: Charting Ethical Responses to Religious Intolerance. Journal of Mass Media Ethics 29:2 ► pp. 74 ff. DOI logo
Varghese, Mary & Kamila Ghazali
2014. Talking “race” through 1Malaysia in editorials. Journal of Language and Politics 13:3 ► pp. 453 ff. DOI logo
Ardıç, Özgül, Jan Anne Annema & Bert van Wee
2013. Has the Dutch news media acted as a policy actor in the road pricing policy debate?. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 57 ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Cohen-Almagor, Raphael
2013. Freedom of Expression v. Social Responsibility: Holocaust Denial in Canada. Journal of Mass Media Ethics 28:1 ► pp. 42 ff. DOI logo
Jakaza, Ernest
2013. Gricean implicature and election predictions: A case of the Zimbabwean 2008 election campaign. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 31:3 ► pp. 311 ff. DOI logo
Jakaza, Ernest
2019. ‘Game changer or another dummy’: Media appraisals of government policies. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 37:2 ► pp. 119 ff. DOI logo
Niblock, Sarah
2013. Journalism and Compassion: Rewriting an On-Screen Crusader for the Digital Age. In Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, ► pp. 79 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.