Re: On tomorrow's coronation...

On Jan 22, 9:19 am, "DGDevin" <dgde...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
RichL wrote:
Tell me this, though.  Is all "advocacy journalism" bad or worthless?
As I understand it, it is presenting issues from a particular
perspective.  In that sense, it's not "objective".  It doesn't mean
distorting facts however, and it's still subject to the same rules of
accuracy.

In my internal dictionary a journalist tells us what happened to the best of
his ability, period.  Advocates have another agenda, they want to influence
events rather than just report them.  In the case of 60 Minutes v. Bush the
advocates were presented with evidence under suspicious circumstances, they
failed to observe the news department's usual policies on confirming
stories, they reported only portions of some of the information they had so
as to support a particular point of view, and when their central piece of
evidence became suspect they made false claims about experts having vouched
for it.  Whatever some folks choose to call it, that isn't journalism in my
books.

The 60 Minutes story on Bush's supposed AWOL record wasn't subject to the
same rules of accuracy, that's why some of the people associated with it got
fired.  IMO reporting that is objective and subject to the rules of accuracy
is not advocacy journalism, it's just plain journalism.  Once some facts are
omitted for the purpose of persuading the viewer to reach a certain
conclusion it is no longer journalism, it's propaganda.  I'm confident that
if someone presented you with experimental results that you learned had been
obtained under similar circumstances--"Here's most of the data, we left out
the stuff that didn't support our theory and made up some of the
rest"--you'd throw them out of the lab.  The instant a reporter decides to
suppress some facts or use information of questionable validity he is no
longer functioning as a journalist, it's no different that a scientist who
suppresses or fakes data.  When I turn on 60 Minutes I don't want to know
what a producer who considers herself a crusader wants me to believe
happened--I want to know the truth.  I'm surprised that someone in your line
of work is apparently satisfied with less.

I agree in principle, with the essential caveat that the choice to
report (or not report) ANYTHING is a political choice, and that means
*some* degree of bias is inevitable. Hyporthetically: reporting on a
dog show while there's an epidemic of euthenasia at local pounds is a
political choice. Reporting on homeless refugees in Palestine rather
than homeless people in Seattle is a political choice. News will
always be subject to the editors' biases (and commercial concerns)
about which information is important. I'm guessing you've considered
all that, but it's important to say.
.

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