As the adviser to a college student newspaper, part of my job is to teach students how to cover stories for the mass media. As you might guess, that can become quite a daunting task, especially when you throw in ethics.
Recently, an adviser colleague found ethics to be even more daunting than usual as she contemplated hiring a student who was part of the gay community. This student was active in the gay community, and the adviser was concerned about the student's ability to objectively cover issues related to the gay community.
A variety of other advisers chimed in saying how involvement in an organization means that a person cannot be objective in covering the organization.
My response was immediate.
As a journalist and a professor who teaches journalism, I have had the philosophy that wrapping yourself in the flag of objectivity is ridiculous if you are a journalist. Objectivity is an ideal, not a reality.
It's better to understand your biases and work to maintain fairness and balance. The ideal of objectivity just leads to biased coverage and lack of context, which is what most people complain about when they roast the media. This is the context in which my response began, but it is also based on my belief that the white, male view of news is just plain biased. And the white, male view of journalism is what my colleague got from the variety of other advisers who offered their advice.
The reality of covering news is that gay journalists have a better understanding of the gay community; Hispanic journalists have a better understanding of the Hispanic community, African-American journalists have a better understanding of the African-American community, etc., etc. You get the point. People from the community are also more likely to speech to folks who understand them--people who are like them. We use this understanding of people in research by trying to match subjects and researchers based on gender, age, ethnicity and race. It just makes sense.
Today's media would benefit from looking at things differently. Embrace the different points of view of groups who could expand coverage, expand thinking and expand the media market. Seems like something today's media really need--expanded markets. After all, narrow thinking has left the media grappling to stay alive. Isn't it time they were maybe a little more relevant?
