Journalism is a pretty conservative field. The Associated Press Stylebook has yet to accept that “they” can be a singular pronoun and The New York Times still uses Mr. and Ms., which reinforce the gender binary. Student journalists are taught to be objective, to get both sides of every story — present the facts and tie them together.
However, this objective utopia that we’re taught about, if it ever existed, doesn’t exist any more. MSNBC and Fox News have clear points of view. For the most part, only the journalists who don’t have to interact with politics on a daily basis do not reveal their views. In fact, it’s this attempt to be objective, despite everything, that gave rise to Donald Trump and legitimized his campaign. Because of constant accusations
of a liberal media bias from the right, outlets went out of their ways to be objective. But Trump wasn’t just any Republican presidential candidate and should not have been treated as such. As a figure in the public eye for many years, it should not have taken this long to uncover the infamous tape in which Trump brags about sexual assault. The media knew a lot about Hillary Clinton’s personal life, because she was in the political sphere for much of her life. As a rule, politicians are held to a
higher standard than entertainers, and
when Trump decided to be a politician, the media should have dug for what was left out of interviews and edits of “The Apprentice.”
With newer outlets like "The Young Turks” and Vox, the traditional model in which journalists try to conceal their points of view is less and less prevalent. The journalists at these outlets embrace opinion but also get to the truth. I’ve grown to prefer these outlets as someone who is pro-choice and believes that global warming is real — I just don’t want to sit through programs that entertain anti-science propaganda. Based on those preferences, I select where I get my news — and so do other people, which explains the popularity of Fox News.
Two weeks ago, journalist Amy Goodman of the “Democracy Now!” radio show was charged with rioting after covering the protests against an oil pipeline in North Dakota. According to The New York Times, the prosecutor justified her arrest by saying, “She’s a protester, basically. Everything she reported on was from the position of justifying the protest actions.”
Essentially the prosecutor is using the fact that she agrees with the protestors to discredit her as a journalist. This protest has been mostly neglected by mainstream media. In many ways, her arrest not only censors a journalist, but also represents a stifling of Native American voices, because Goodman’s work was trying to amplify them. The major news outlets fail to cover certain stories, and that’s where programs with a point of view come in — they narrow journalists’ focus and allow them to tackle stories in a new way. A journalist who reports through his or her own perspective should not be penalized — in fact, pretending to be impartial can be more damaging. As a field, journalism must accept a space for opinion. These opinions might drive a reporter to tell stories that often get neglected or outright swept under the rug at major news outlets. Objectivity cannot be prized over telling stories that need to be told.
Nicole Dan is a UF political science and journalism junior. Her column appears on Mondays.
