Criteria that assist judgments about (a) to (c) go beyond the criterion of expressing facts. They include norms of conceptual clarity, completeness of fact—the story contains the most important facts—a proper context for facts, and the logical coherence of statements within the story. This is the same type of objectivity that today guides scientific and other forms of active investigation into the world.
Moreover, this type of engaged objectivity is thwarted if one adopts a strict neutrality. The correct stance for democratically engaged journalism is impartiality, understood as not allowing one’s pre-existing partialities to prejudge the facts, angle, or conclusions of a story. Unlike neutrality, impartiality allows perspectives to be adopted and conclusions to be drawn, if they are informed by sufficient investigation.
In previous writings, I developed a detailed theory of this situated method of objectivity which I call “pragmatic objectivity” because it is designed for practices such as journalism.24 Condensed for this chapter, pragmatic objectivity can be described as the application of two things to practice: adopting an objective stance toward stories, and then testing stories by applying a set of evaluative norms. The objective stance is a willingness to adopt certain attitudes or “cognitive virtues” which allow us to step back from beliefs, claims, and theories. The cognitive virtues include a willingness to be impartial, and acceptance of the “burdens of judgment” when making public statements. The burdens include the need to verify facts and to provide good evidence for claims.25 The objective stance also requires inquirers to be passionately and genuinely interested in truth-seeking, which shows itself in a willingness to follow the facts where they lead and to alter one’s views as the evidence dictates.
However, adopting the objective stance is not sufficient for objectivity. The inquirer has to apply that stance to actual stories. That is, journalistic inquirers evaluate their interpretations by testing for accuracy, by seeking cross-verification from multiple sources, by questioning the origin of information, by providing fair representations of other people’s views, and so on. Journalists are objective if they adopt the objective stance and use objective norms to test interpretations.
Pragmatic objectivity suits today’s journalism because it is a flexible method that can be applied to different kinds of journalism, from reporting to analysis to civic engaged journalism. The norms of disengaged, neutral journalism apply only to fact-stating, straight reporting. Pragmatic objectivity works against dogmatism, sloppy reporting, entrenched biases, and a refusal to learn from other perspectives. Regrettably, we have too little pragmatic objectivity in the public sphere, among journalists and citizens.
Where Does It Fit?
Where does democratically engaged journalism fit on the continuum of Figure 2.1? The obvious answer is that it fits somewhere in the perspectival or active engagement divisions, perhaps the latter. However, I offer a different conception that can at first sound paradoxical: One can think of democratically engaged journalism as not on the continuum. Democratically engaged journalism is such a broad stance toward practice that we can think of many forms of journalism on the continuum, if practiced correctly, as contributing to the comprehensive goal of sustaining egalitarian democracy amid media corruption. Straight reporting in a neutral fashion does not violate the ethic of democratically engaged journalism; it simply is insufficient for democracy and it should not be the dominant approach to journalism.
A democratic public benefits from many forms of journalism: investigative journalism, interpretative journalism, community journalism, opinion journalism—all working under the umbrella stance of democratically engaged journalism. However, this “ecumenical” idea should not blind us to the fact that the moral ideology of democratically engaged journalism is calling for serious revision of how many people think about journalism. The change can be stated most provocatively by saying that, for democratically engaged journalism, journalists are, or should be, social advocates—social advocates of a special kind. They are advocates for egalitarian democracy at home and abroad. They practice an impartial journalism of method for partial ends—democratic goals. This conception is a long way from the original notion of news objectivity constructed a century ago.
Section 3: Objections
The moral ideology of democratically engaged journalism mixes terms that, traditionally, have been thought to be opposites or incompatible, such as “objectively engaged” or “factual interpretation” or “goal-driven objectivity.” The sense that such phrases are contradictory is due, in large part, to the dualistic way in which our culture has thought about knowledge and inquiry. Therefore, it is important to consider some objections to democratically engaged journalism, concerning the role of facts, neutrality, emotions, and attachments.
Accuracy, Neutrality, and Facts
When people consider how journalists should respond to a toxic public sphere, they sometimes suggest that the “answer” is that journalists should publish accurate reports, period; and not publish fake news or intolerant views. Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple. The problem goes beyond accuracy. One can accurately report fake claims by quoting officials. Also, fake news is produced by sources other than mainstream news media. Journalists cannot entirely ignore unreasonable people, since what they do and say has social implications.
Another suggested answer is that journalists should stop “editorializing” and be neutral, and not take sides on any issue or problem. But neutrality is the wrong ideal for a socially embedded profession like journalism. There are many topics where neutrality is absurd. Should journalists be neutral on whether child sexual abuse is right or wrong? If doing a story on child sexual abuse, should the journalism, to be balanced and objective, quote someone who thinks child sexual abuse is a good thing? Of course not.
Journalists have always struggled to be neutral. Some of the best works of journalism have not been neutral. In 1887, Elizabeth Cochrane, one the first female reporters, writing under the pseudonym of Nellie Bly, went to work at Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. One of her first projects was to get herself committed to the asylum on Roosevelt Island by feigning insanity. Her exposé of conditions among the patients precipitated a grand-jury investigation and sparked improvements in patient care. Was Nellie Bly neutral? No. Were the editors of The Washington Post and The New York Times neutral when they opposed Richard Nixon in publishing the Pentagon papers? Such journalists were engaged, their works were value-laden, and goal-driven. Yet they did not simply editorialize. They dug deep for hidden, important facts. Today, when journalism awards are handed out, the winning stories are lauded for their engagement: e.g., revealing some injustice. There is not much talk about neutrality.
As for sticking to the facts, pragmatic objectivity agrees that factuality is important. But being factual is not easy. For example, journalists should ask: What facts, and whose facts? What is a fact today is often what some prominent person says is a fact. Journalists should ask: Is this really a fact? If we have facts, what do they mean? Who stands to benefit if this is reported as fact? What facts are ignored or presumed? Historian David Mindich has documented how American newspapers covered the lynching of African Americans in the 1890s. The papers covered them in a matter-of-fact dispassionate manner. The coverage expressed no emotion. It accepted the view that the black men were guilty of rape, though they were never tried. African Americans were depicted as cowards, and white subjects as heroes, in a detached writing style.26
Moreover, the idea that reports are, or should be, only collages of facts, scrubbed free of interpretation by the reporter, is a myth. Even straight news stories involve the reporter’s perspective on what the story is about, the angle to take, the sources to choose, the facts to include. The stories of journalism contain conjectures, expert opinion, theories, historical perspectives, and science. Further, what needs coverage is not just official facts but trends; needed reforms; implications of new technology; cultural attitudes; ethnic tensions; moral questions; history; inequalities; powerful, behind-the scenes, groups; and how people interpret the basic political principles of their society. This requires a journalism of investigation, of reform, of interpretation, and a journalism of reasoned debate. To do so properly, journalists need