Ted Koppel, a living paragon of news reporting in the last thirty years, wrote a recent op-ed piece lamenting the death of objective journalism in today's media while taking direct stabs at Fox News's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. His claim was that such modern commentators were purely political partisans designed to feed a profit machine by preaching vehemently to the choir and, for the most part, devoid of actual objective fact and analytical journalism. I have linked the article as well as Keith Olbermann's response on his show to the piece, but I believe this deserves some additional commentary I haven't seen offered yet.
Ted Koppel is wrong.
But first, a point about the responses by both Olbermann and O'Reilly. Both men responded defensively. They challenged the objectivity of Koppel's work and time, Olbermann pointing out the idealization of objective news simply ignored the reality of the subjective commentary provided during Koppel's time and O'Reilly challenging the retired newsman to show where he lied to the public. While both responses are predictable considering the criticism leveled at them by such a news heavy hitter, neither of them really answered claims made by the newsman; Mr. Koppel didn't really call O'Reilly a liar, neither did he say his time was devoid of subjective bias. Instead the article lamented the direction that news commentators were taking. He looked at the children of his own 'Nightline' show and decried the painfully obvious bias present in each, his concern far more locked into the direction these shows were taking towards partisanship. A direction he clearly believes to be in error.
Again, Ted Koppel is wrong.
There was a time not too long ago where the purpose of news was to provide the public with information. In 1980, when Nightline started, there were no cell phones in common use. There was no Internet outside of military and university control. Television and newsprint were the primary methods for anyone to know what was going on in their world. During this era, people were hungry for coverage that showed them a picture of what was happening in their government, country, and world. Nobody wanted to hear someone ramble on about what they thought – you could get that at the water cooler or salon. What people wanted was a window into their world and coverage of the events themselves.
It was this hunger that colored and shaped the growth of journalism. Keith Olbermann is right to point out that bias existed – both real and accused by outsiders – even during the 70's, 80's and 90's. However, this bias and subjective interpretation had to be couched around describing the actual events at hand. The fact was that until a newspaper or show told them, most people had no idea what was happening outside their local community. Pair up this fact with the severe limitations of word limits of newspaper columns and short often half hour news spots to cover hundreds of potential stories and there is little confusion left as to why journalism focused almost entirely on the artistically concise conveyance of facts.
So in this environment, subjectivity was found in story choice, word choice, and emphasis. It was not interpretive as much as it was a background color dropped behind the words to hopefully give readers an impression as the journalist worked within tight borders to let people see what was happening in their world.
Fast forward.
To write this article, I found the video links for Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann's on-air response to the Washington Post article written by Ted Koppel, and provided links to my page which you can quickly use to see the material involved. I read half a dozen blog articles on the subject as well as public reactions to it. As I type this, I'm using my phone to fact check.
This is not a world that requires information anymore. We are, arguably, drowning in it. A search on virtually any topic brings up thousands if not millions of hits, and the moment anything happens anywhere it can be networked to the whole world in digital color and stereo sound from a hand held phone. With this now virtually live and constant stream of information flowing from all over the world, the hunger of our population has shifted and changed. We no longer want someone to tell us what's going on. We already know. We've seen it from 6 different cameras on 3 different continents and read about it on 4 web sites.
What we crave now is meaning.
With all the angles and visuals and sounds and facts flooding at us like a torrent, we search for people who have the ability to put the information together into a cohesive, meaningful whole. We want interpreters, not just another source of facts. Interpretation, by definition, is subjective and based on the biases and beliefs of those doing the work. So yes, we want conservatives to give us a conservative understanding of the facts we have. We look to liberals for the same from other side. The bias is not an unfortunate byproduct of being human that we should be trying to purge, it is, in fact, the goal of what news is and should become. It is what the public needs right now.
Being forthright about bias lets us know going in that we are entering into a specific kind of interpretation, much like selecting a flavor or color. We actually want to hear someone with a good mind and a similar viewpoint draw up the flood of facts, freeze it for a moment, then carve it into meaning that we can step back from and use to understand our world. So when I watch Keith Olbermann, I know he's a liberal, I know I'm getting a left leaning presentation of the issues of the day, and I'm fine with that so long as the presentation of the issues is honest – not a use of information to deceive.
And therein lies where the current struggle of media resides. There is a fine line between interpretation and propaganda. I will argue that Fox news has crossed that line while MSNBC toes up to it without doing so. It is this issue that deserves the careful scrutiny world journalists and accountability from the whole of the industry. When a news organization starts to use the issues to actively promote politics as opposed to providing a world view colored from a particular vantage, deception creeps into the mix and then we see a true regression of journalism as opposed to it's evolution towards a interpretive medium.
So, Mr. Koppel, what we have now is not the death of objectivity, it is the natural evolution of news to fill the needs of the people. News is, as it always has been, tying the ropes together and helping the public get a grip on the package so contained. The difference is that now the strands are no longer merely events. They are instead an exploration of their relevance to me, the reader or watcher – and I am not a man without bias. So yes, it will be a bumpy road as we figure out how far is too far when it comes to acting as interpreter, but in the end, this is exactly where we need to be.
Ted Koppel is wrong.
But first, a point about the responses by both Olbermann and O'Reilly. Both men responded defensively. They challenged the objectivity of Koppel's work and time, Olbermann pointing out the idealization of objective news simply ignored the reality of the subjective commentary provided during Koppel's time and O'Reilly challenging the retired newsman to show where he lied to the public. While both responses are predictable considering the criticism leveled at them by such a news heavy hitter, neither of them really answered claims made by the newsman; Mr. Koppel didn't really call O'Reilly a liar, neither did he say his time was devoid of subjective bias. Instead the article lamented the direction that news commentators were taking. He looked at the children of his own 'Nightline' show and decried the painfully obvious bias present in each, his concern far more locked into the direction these shows were taking towards partisanship. A direction he clearly believes to be in error.
Again, Ted Koppel is wrong.
There was a time not too long ago where the purpose of news was to provide the public with information. In 1980, when Nightline started, there were no cell phones in common use. There was no Internet outside of military and university control. Television and newsprint were the primary methods for anyone to know what was going on in their world. During this era, people were hungry for coverage that showed them a picture of what was happening in their government, country, and world. Nobody wanted to hear someone ramble on about what they thought – you could get that at the water cooler or salon. What people wanted was a window into their world and coverage of the events themselves.
It was this hunger that colored and shaped the growth of journalism. Keith Olbermann is right to point out that bias existed – both real and accused by outsiders – even during the 70's, 80's and 90's. However, this bias and subjective interpretation had to be couched around describing the actual events at hand. The fact was that until a newspaper or show told them, most people had no idea what was happening outside their local community. Pair up this fact with the severe limitations of word limits of newspaper columns and short often half hour news spots to cover hundreds of potential stories and there is little confusion left as to why journalism focused almost entirely on the artistically concise conveyance of facts.
So in this environment, subjectivity was found in story choice, word choice, and emphasis. It was not interpretive as much as it was a background color dropped behind the words to hopefully give readers an impression as the journalist worked within tight borders to let people see what was happening in their world.
Fast forward.
To write this article, I found the video links for Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann's on-air response to the Washington Post article written by Ted Koppel, and provided links to my page which you can quickly use to see the material involved. I read half a dozen blog articles on the subject as well as public reactions to it. As I type this, I'm using my phone to fact check.
This is not a world that requires information anymore. We are, arguably, drowning in it. A search on virtually any topic brings up thousands if not millions of hits, and the moment anything happens anywhere it can be networked to the whole world in digital color and stereo sound from a hand held phone. With this now virtually live and constant stream of information flowing from all over the world, the hunger of our population has shifted and changed. We no longer want someone to tell us what's going on. We already know. We've seen it from 6 different cameras on 3 different continents and read about it on 4 web sites.
What we crave now is meaning.
With all the angles and visuals and sounds and facts flooding at us like a torrent, we search for people who have the ability to put the information together into a cohesive, meaningful whole. We want interpreters, not just another source of facts. Interpretation, by definition, is subjective and based on the biases and beliefs of those doing the work. So yes, we want conservatives to give us a conservative understanding of the facts we have. We look to liberals for the same from other side. The bias is not an unfortunate byproduct of being human that we should be trying to purge, it is, in fact, the goal of what news is and should become. It is what the public needs right now.
Being forthright about bias lets us know going in that we are entering into a specific kind of interpretation, much like selecting a flavor or color. We actually want to hear someone with a good mind and a similar viewpoint draw up the flood of facts, freeze it for a moment, then carve it into meaning that we can step back from and use to understand our world. So when I watch Keith Olbermann, I know he's a liberal, I know I'm getting a left leaning presentation of the issues of the day, and I'm fine with that so long as the presentation of the issues is honest – not a use of information to deceive.
And therein lies where the current struggle of media resides. There is a fine line between interpretation and propaganda. I will argue that Fox news has crossed that line while MSNBC toes up to it without doing so. It is this issue that deserves the careful scrutiny world journalists and accountability from the whole of the industry. When a news organization starts to use the issues to actively promote politics as opposed to providing a world view colored from a particular vantage, deception creeps into the mix and then we see a true regression of journalism as opposed to it's evolution towards a interpretive medium.
So, Mr. Koppel, what we have now is not the death of objectivity, it is the natural evolution of news to fill the needs of the people. News is, as it always has been, tying the ropes together and helping the public get a grip on the package so contained. The difference is that now the strands are no longer merely events. They are instead an exploration of their relevance to me, the reader or watcher – and I am not a man without bias. So yes, it will be a bumpy road as we figure out how far is too far when it comes to acting as interpreter, but in the end, this is exactly where we need to be.
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