Re: Maclean's respondshundunMay 13 2007, 22:33:04 UTC
[At the request of the authour of the comment referred to in the Maclean's Article, I have screened her critique, copied it, and pasted it below.]
The tendency of what used to be called "investigative" journalism, in recent years, to obsess over finding & reporting both sides of any debate, both worries and upsets me. It turns every potentially controversial news story into a banal game of word-against-word, no matter how unevenly matched the words might be.
The SFSS has pointed out, with quite a bit of evidence, that the CFS is crooked and cultlike, and is trying hard to break away? A large number of other student societies agree, but lack the clout & resources to act on such a claim? That ought to be the story. But no, it wouldn't be neutral; and so equal space and emphasis must be allocated to a spokesperson from the CFS who repeats, "No we're not!" in a variety of unsubstantiated ways.
This is exactly the same journalistic emasculation* which is responsible for keeping alive the idea that climate change is controversial -- because there have to be two sides to the story, right?
Imagine the following news report, whose similarities to the one in Maclean's are, I assure you, entirely coincidental:
Horatio McGillicuddy and his family are attempting to resign from the Church of the Utopian Cabbage, citing corruption, bullying, and cultlike behaviour -- allegations which also surfaced last year from several other families, none of whom ultimately left the Church. In the last two months the McGillicuddys have stopped paying tithes to the Church, which typically demands thousands of dollars annually, and filed papers announcing their intention to depart immediately. However, a Church spokesperson says that the McGillicuddys' resignation is not valid because they failed to give six months' notice to the Grand Slaw Council. The Church points out that its rules allow it to spend six months presenting gifts and candy to Mr. McGillicuddy's three children so that they can make a more informed decision. The spokesperson also vehemently denied Mr. McGillicuddy's charges of corruption, saying, "We never did any of that."
Is it fair reporting to give equal treatment to both sides of this issue? What about here:
Today the rain fell over most of downtown Vancouver, causing most pedestrians to open umbrellas and step over the puddles. However, Mr. Æthelstan Nosegay, a downtown busker, has compiled a set of arguments showing the contrary. "The puddles were mostly generated by passing cars," he said, "throwing water up over the kerb. There's no real evidence that this water originally came from the sky."
Yes, it's important to give the CFS an opportunity to rebut the SFSS. But after investigating both sides of the issue, it's at least as important to evaluate them fairly. That honest appraisal is where journalistic neutrality & integrity truly lie: setting aside both personal and editorial bias to give both apologia a voice, and then finding in favour of the stronger argument. It's not about simply presenting both of them side by side like an eleventh-grade three-paragraph essay.
The journalist, not the reader, is the one who's done the research; the journalist is the one with an obligation to judge the results. (The reader's job ought to be evaluating whether she agrees with the journalist's conclusion, and clearly articulating why or why not.) Sometimes both sides really are quite evenly matched, and a good investigative journalist will explicitly say so ... but not in this case. What a disappointing article.
*If I may be allowed to use the word in a pejorative sense.
Re: Maclean's respondshundunMay 18 2007, 21:59:49 UTC
OSMIE: Of course I read your comment. We are in the age of google alerts, rss feeds, and limitless web surfing. I am a troller. I troll student blogs, among many other sources, to find out what’s going on in the university world. I read everything I can. You didn’t hurt my feelings. People have called me worse things than a bad journalist. How about a child pornographer sympathizer? or pro-war? or a plain old dick? These are things I've been called. My point is that I have thick skin. Don't lose sleep over it.
Anyways, I appreciated your comment. It made me realize that I had been a little overparanoid about representing the CFS side from being called a student union hater so many times.
The tendency of what used to be called "investigative" journalism, in recent years, to obsess over finding & reporting both sides of any debate, both worries and upsets me. It turns every potentially controversial news story into a banal game of word-against-word, no matter how unevenly matched the words might be.
The SFSS has pointed out, with quite a bit of evidence, that the CFS is crooked and cultlike, and is trying hard to break away? A large number of other student societies agree, but lack the clout & resources to act on such a claim? That ought to be the story. But no, it wouldn't be neutral; and so equal space and emphasis must be allocated to a spokesperson from the CFS who repeats, "No we're not!" in a variety of unsubstantiated ways.
This is exactly the same journalistic emasculation* which is responsible for keeping alive the idea that climate change is controversial -- because there have to be two sides to the story, right?
Imagine the following news report, whose similarities to the one in Maclean's are, I assure you, entirely coincidental:
Horatio McGillicuddy and his family are attempting to resign from the Church of the Utopian Cabbage, citing corruption, bullying, and cultlike behaviour -- allegations which also surfaced last year from several other families, none of whom ultimately left the Church. In the last two months the McGillicuddys have stopped paying tithes to the Church, which typically demands thousands of dollars annually, and filed papers announcing their intention to depart immediately. However, a Church spokesperson says that the McGillicuddys' resignation is not valid because they failed to give six months' notice to the Grand Slaw Council. The Church points out that its rules allow it to spend six months presenting gifts and candy to Mr. McGillicuddy's three children so that they can make a more informed decision. The spokesperson also vehemently denied Mr. McGillicuddy's charges of corruption, saying, "We never did any of that."
Is it fair reporting to give equal treatment to both sides of this issue? What about here:
Today the rain fell over most of downtown Vancouver, causing most pedestrians to open umbrellas and step over the puddles. However, Mr. Æthelstan Nosegay, a downtown busker, has compiled a set of arguments showing the contrary. "The puddles were mostly generated by passing cars," he said, "throwing water up over the kerb. There's no real evidence that this water originally came from the sky."
Yes, it's important to give the CFS an opportunity to rebut the SFSS. But after investigating both sides of the issue, it's at least as important to evaluate them fairly. That honest appraisal is where journalistic neutrality & integrity truly lie: setting aside both personal and editorial bias to give both apologia a voice, and then finding in favour of the stronger argument. It's not about simply presenting both of them side by side like an eleventh-grade three-paragraph essay.
The journalist, not the reader, is the one who's done the research; the journalist is the one with an obligation to judge the results. (The reader's job ought to be evaluating whether she agrees with the journalist's conclusion, and clearly articulating why or why not.) Sometimes both sides really are quite evenly matched, and a good investigative journalist will explicitly say so ... but not in this case. What a disappointing article.
*If I may be allowed to use the word in a pejorative sense.
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(The comment has been removed)
Anyways, I appreciated your comment. It made me realize that I had been a little overparanoid about representing the CFS side from being called a student union hater so many times.
Ah, the life of a journalist.
-Erin, Maclean's (Ooooooo!) :)
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