Why do referees wear black and white stripes? Because a neutral uniform is essential to their role. Wearing a team’s jersey would create doubt about whether their calls are driven by the rules or personal bias. Journalists are divided on a comparable question — should reporters wear their own team’s jersey or align with the neutrality of the newsroom?
The answer is simple — biased referees compromise the fairness of the game, just as biased journalists undermine the credibility of the news. But many journalists, including professors at GW’s School of Media & Public Affairs, have joined a movement challenging journalistic objectivity. To ensure fair play in the media, we must reinforce journalists’ role as impartial participants.
Both revenue and readership are plummeting on mainstream media sites as the public looks for alternative news sources on social and new media. According to a recent Gallup poll, 69 percent of Americans now have little or no trust in the media. One of the chief complaints is the perceived political bias and advocacy that characterizes much of the coverage. Even so, many SMPA professors continue to push for more advocacy in the news.
Across the country, journalism schools are increasingly downplaying or even rejecting the touchstones of “objectivity” and “neutrality” in favor of a type of advocacy in coverage. A prior survey by former Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward of over 75 news leaders found a widespread rejection of objectivity in favor of journalists pursuing social justice and other goals in their coverage.
At SMPA, the rejection of objectivity starts in the classroom. I recently heard from an SMPA student that objectivity in journalism is impossible to achieve. Later, another SMPA student said this view is often echoed by SMPA professors in their lessons.
Many of SMPA’s professors aren’t merely moving past objectivity — they have taken the lead baton. In a panel hosted by SMPA earlier this school year, Shapiro Fellow Michael Tomasky opposed the view from The New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn that “the paper’s chief responsibility is to inform readers, not to preserve the democratic system itself.” And in a discussion on objectivity, SMPA professor Nikki Mayo expressed support for incorporating personal perspectives into news coverage.
The role of the news is not to jump to conclusions but to provide information for readers to form their own. In 1920, Walter Lippmann, a renowned American journalist, recognized journalism as crucial to the functioning of democracy. But journalism, in his view, needed “standards of evidence” if it was to serve its community. He feared an environment that many journalists have now embraced, where people “cease to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions.”
We are human after all, and humans have opinions. It’s what makes journalism such a challenging field — we must set our own views aside to get the whole story.
When I was a cub-reporter in high school, my first lesson felt like the journalist’s version of the Hippocratic Oath — we must remain independent voices, free of bias, if we are to call ourselves journalists. As a journalist outside SMPA, I assumed my peers would be taught what I once believed to be an ironclad rule of journalism. Hearing the statements from professors entrusted with preparing the next generation of truth-seekers, I was disheartened.
Interest in the news is plummeting. The solution cannot be straying further away from high journalistic standards. Drift too far from those principles, and our newsrooms may just become a very crowded opinion page. If news outlets are to survive, future journalists cannot join the movement to abandon objectivity.
Madie Turley, a sophomore majoring in English and creative writing, is the contributing opinions editor.