Today’s New York Times debate between Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald is terrific — better than I had expected. For me, the high point is how they make the case for fair, neutral journalism (Keller) and fair journalism with a clearly articulated point of view (Greenwald). I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do it better on either side.
Greenwald first:
A journalist who is petrified of appearing to express any opinions will often steer clear of declarative sentences about what is true, opting instead for a cowardly and unhelpful “here’s-what-both-sides-say-and-I-won’t-resolve-the-conflicts” formulation. That rewards dishonesty on the part of political and corporate officials who know they can rely on “objective” reporters to amplify their falsehoods without challenge (i.e., reporting is reduced to “X says Y” rather than “X says Y and that’s false”).
Worse still, this suffocating constraint on how reporters are permitted to express themselves produces a self-neutering form of journalism that becomes as ineffectual as it is boring. A failure to call torture “torture” because government officials demand that a more pleasant euphemism be used, or lazily equating a demonstrably true assertion with a demonstrably false one, drains journalism of its passion, vibrancy, vitality and soul.
Now Keller:
I don’t think of it as reporters pretending they have no opinions. I think of it as reporters, as an occupational discipline, suspending their opinions and letting the evidence speak for itself. And it matters that this is not just an individual exercise, but an institutional discipline, with editors who are tasked to challenge writers if they have given short shrift to contrary facts or arguments readers might want to know.
The thing is, once you have publicly declared your “subjective assumptions and political values,” it’s human nature to want to defend them, and it becomes tempting to omit or minimize facts, or frame the argument, in ways that support your declared viewpoint. And some readers, knowing that you write from the left or right, will view your reporting with justified suspicion.
I’m sympathetic to both points of view. But what I especially like about Keller’s is the idea that stating one’s opinions changes not just how the audience sees the journalist, but also how the journalist goes about his own work.
I’ve long argued that even an opinion journalist shouldn’t disclose her voting intentions. That’s because if it’s your job to take positions, it’s a lot harder to change those positions once you’ve joined someone’s team.
There’s a lot more where that came from, including much about Greenwald’s newly announced venture funded by eBay rich guy Pierre Omidyar — explained at some length by the redoubtable Jay Rosen.
