The Three C's of Convergence

Are we men or are we journos? (Apologies to both of the world's remaining Devo fans.) Can we be humanly opinionated, yet function as factually trustworthy reporters. It's a question of whether journalists -- whoever or whatever they are -- revere and practice objectivity, credibility, or something else.

Case in point: Blogistan is all atwitter (or whatever it is with blogs) over whether Lou Dobbs of CNN has stepped outside his proper role.

Dobbs says Dubai Ports World is trying to silence his editorial hammering of the deal that would put the United Arab Emirates-owned company in charge of cargo terminals in New York and several other harbors (here). Brian Montopoli, writing at CBS PublicEye (here), weighs in, without taking much of a stand:

Is there a clear line between Dobbs the editorialist and Dobbs the reporter? Do we care? Dobbs told AP he believes "the issues are too important to feign any kind of neutrality, or pretend to some objectivity that simply doesn't exist. I'm not one of those journalists who's interested in doing he said-she said journalism. You know as a journalist, the truth is not about fair and balanced."

Not too many comments at the CBS site (well, just one, as I write this), but dozens at AMERICAblog, which comes down strongly on the "objectivity? schmobjectivity!" side. Edward R. Murrow, the argument goes, wasn't objective -- go see "Good Night and Good Luck." In an AP article (here), the Media Research Center's Dan Gainor says that CNN allows Dobbs to inject his opinion into news reports, and that Dobbs' program gives "short shrift to contradictory views."

So, the floor is open -- yet again -- on the question of whether you can be a wholesome journalistic mensch if you're openly opinionated.

Let's go right to the heart of the newspaper establishment for a view of how this plays out. The American Society of Newspaper Editors is about as rock-ribbed journo-central as it gets, and it's no surprise that ASNE has been struggling with this whole notion for exactly... uh... lots of years.

ANSE's "Reconsidering Journalism Values" (here, published 1997 and updated 1999), a statement of the Journalistic Values Institute, entirely avoids mention of "objectivity" in favor of "Balance/Fairness/Wholeness" (take that, Lou Dobbs) and "Accuracy/Authenticity."

Credibility, not objectivity, is the "newsroom franchise," according to the statement. Objectivity? Nowhere present, at least in the diction and rhetoric of this argument.

The entry for credibility is evasive: "to consistently fulfill journalistic values over time and convey a deep understanding of the communities a newspaper serves." Credibility means, to get at it a little more directly, that people tend to believe you, but it's enough of an elastic and relative term that it doesn't actually mean you tell the truth. It means you have a good rep for telling the truth. Furthermore, credibility isn't something you do: "But while credibility is essential to a newspaper, it is not necessarily an action value on its own." It's something you develop through "balance, accuracy, leadership and accessibility."

Still no objectivity -- and this is coming from rock-ribbed journo central.

ASNE gives the notion of balance, fairness and wholeness a treatment that's almost as fuzzy as the definition of credibility: "to reflect the 'wholeness' of communities. Coverage needs to capture diverse voices and viewpoints, solutions and problems, the profoundly ordinary as well as the unusual, the good with the bad."

The discussion of accessibility -- "to connect the public to important community issues. Coverage needs to create give-and-take between the newspaper and its communities, and connect citizens to one another" -- may get us closer to something useful. At least, here, we're acknowledging the public's role in journalistic communication. And that may be blogistan's point, when all the partisan yammering ("He's biased!" "So what? He's right!") is over. Accessibility means openness, presumably openness about the opinions of the reporter. It means, as NYU's Jay Rosen is fond of saying, that journalism is now a conversation, not a lecture (here).

Journalists can be both informative and opinionated. We are both men and Devo.

Whether Dobbs is giving his audience all it needs to come to reasoned conclusions about the Dubai deal, I can't say, not being a steady viewer of his show. Whether Keith Olbermann gives me all I need to come to reasoned conclusions about what he covers, I can say: absolutely not. And I know that because I've been watching a fair amount of the Countdown lately. It's a useful take, but incomplete.

So, you say, that must mean that blogistan is right... we can't trust any one source... we have to sort through the cacaphony (I've always wanted to use that word, and here it fits) of voices and work out some version of "the truth" for ourselves.

But I don't agree wholly with that. We're seeing a tectonic shift in the way people consume information. Tectonic shifts are deep, and usually they're slow and invisible. But when the fault line cracks, it can do monumental damage.

I suspect that's what we're going through -- a period in which the pressures of an increasingly partisan news media are building up, in which the red/blue state mentalities are building toward a quake. It will shake us when it comes. We won't know until the aftershocks are over just how badly we've been hit -- whether people are genuinely using the new media to make informed political decisions, or whether they're kidding themselves that they have anything like a complete picture. But in order to answer our men/Devo question, we need to know how people take and use their news much more than we need to speculate on whether Lou Dobbs is stepping outside his proper role.