Objectivity in Journalism

One of the most highly sought after goals in modern journalism is that of complete objectivity, the unprejudiced collecting and reporting of events, stories and information. Objective reporting allows the consumer to make decisions about the world and the events that occur within it without the reporter’s subjective views or the influences that are placed upon him. Very few people would be able to argue that objective reporting is prominent in the Great British press, nor is objectivity something that is necessarily possible.

In order to understand whether the journalist can indeed remain objective it is important to understand not only its definition but what elements of journalism make up a truly objective news story, feature or report. Richard Sambrook (2004) states that although fairness, balance and impartiality are all part of objective reporting, objectivity “is not the same as impartiality or fairness or balance although all these words are often used as if they were interchangeable.”
Impartiality means to act fairly for the reason that your are not directly involved or have put aside any personal feelings or views in order to avoid bias and to be fair means to act in a reasonable, justly and right way, while to report with balance is to report things in a perfect context, with all elements in the correct proportion of each other. Objective reporting is different and means to report on factual information that can be supported by evidence and is therefore far more than just attempting to be neutral.

Although the National Union of Journalist’s code of conduct does not explicitly say that the journalist must remain objective it does highlight that it is important to remain fair, balanced, and impartial, therefore it can be seen to be questionable as to whether it is indeed important to be objective. McNair (1999) highlights how that even by the 1920s the term ‘objectivity’ was not a term that journalists or their critics used. However what is clear is that since objectivity has been used as a criticism of the press it has it has not affected what or how the news has been reported. In fact Mcnair also goes on to highlight that what was known in the late 1880 as the penny press, and how it began to report stories in such a way to attain and keep a readership, “newspapers began to report crime, human interest, and other such categories of news which today’s readers would recognise as ‘modern’” (Mcnair 1999 p32) as appose to financial and political stories that were reported traditionally in newspapers aimed at the upper class. Mcnair’s theories are not supported by those of Schiller (1981) however, who argues that objectivity was developed in the need of “commercial imperatives and the need to sell as many papers as possible.” He states that the idea of objectivity comes as a result from a need for the press to be as inoffensive as possible and goes on to say that the scientific attitude that was part of the nineteenth century influenced “communication as it did intellectual enquiry” therefore the reporting of scientific fact was more likely than opinions and educated guesses.