Questions about the strength of the media’s commitment to fairness arise every day, though a few recent events have elevated those concerns.
The New York Times’s apology for publishing Sen. Tom Cotton’s op-ed is one of them. A perhaps more concerning incident involves the news publication Axios, whose chief executive, Jim VandeHei, wrote a memo to staff Monday saying, in part: “First, let me say we proudly support and encourage you to exercise your rights to free speech, press, and protest. If you’re arrested or meet harm while exercising these rights, Axios will stand behind you and use the Family Fund to cover your bail or assist with medical bills.”
VandeHei’s approval (nay, exhortation) of reporters participating in protests is a clear defiance of the overwhelming expectation by the public that reporters report the news and avoid participating in it.
It’s Axios’s expectation, too, more importantly. The company has published its editorial guidelines on the web for all to see. A few statements from the guidelines are striking, considering the memo.
“Axios strives to be worthy of our audience’s trust. Our duty is to report news fairly using journalism’s best practices and to always be transparent in what we do,” reads the very first sentence. “Axios’ editorial team always aims to discern the truth, verify its accuracy and write in an objective manner without conflicts of interest.”
Participation in protests is as clearly a conflict of interest as any other conflict of interest, financial or otherwise. The reason should be obvious: If reporters have demonstrated by their protest that they have a vested interest in stories being framed a certain way, and the public becomes aware of that interest, the public will question those reporters’ abilities to tell the whole story.
There have been plenty within journalism to challenge this objectivity standard, considering it impossible to achieve and so unworthy to pursue. A recent iteration has come from Wesley Lowery, a former reporter for the Washington Post who now works for CBS’s 60 Minutes.
“American view-from-nowhere, ‘objectivity’-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment,” he tweeted about the Cotton op-ed. “We need to rebuild our industry as one that operates from a place of moral clarity.”
American view-from-nowhere, “objectivity”-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment. We need to fundamentally reset the norms of our field. The old way must go. We need to rebuild our industry as one that operates from a place of moral clarity
— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) June 4, 2020
The view isn’t from nowhere. It comes from publications themselves. The New York Times, despite its questionable enforcement, has very explicit and comprehensive standards. The paper goes so far as to warn staff to be wary of bumper stickers on the family car. A bumper sticker, campaign sign-bearing yard, or position on a board could threaten “the professional detachment expected of a journalist.”
The story at Axios is the same, even though its standard ship has run aground.
Whatever the difficulty, whatever the tension between constitutional rights and obligations of the trade, there are expectations that news media have fair reporters, expectations shared by the public but codified by publications. That expectation would preclude them from championing causes and then writing about them, however just.
