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Objectivity in question: should journalists endorse the Black Lives Matter movement?

Kathrin Merritt
Jan 21, 2021
14 min read

By: Kathrin Merritt, Foster Steinbeck and J.C. Shelton

Following the murder of George Floyd, a 44-year-old Black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020, Black Lives Matter protests exploded across the country. Floyd wasn’t alone, as Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake and Elijah McClain’s names were added this year to the lips of hundreds of thousands of protesters calling for racial justice.

Police killings and brutality were the tip of the iceberg, as the movement demanded the recognition and redress of the underlying systemic racism in America, which has socially and economically disenfranchised Black people and other minorities since the nation’s inception.

Caught in the middle of the national turmoil are Black journalists. Today, with technological nuance, such as social media and news dissemination moving primarily online, Black journalists are forced to balance their professional and individual loyalties even more than in years past.

Ruby Bailey, who spent 16 years with the Detroit Free Press, is now executive editor of the Columbia-Missourian. As a Black woman, Bailey said journalists of color face unique challenges when covering stories involving minority voices.

“If we cover communities that look like our own, where some of our own are devalued as sources of giving accurate information about a situation, we are simply called advocates which is, if that's a bad thing, depending on what we are advocating for,” Bailey continued. “If you're advocating on behalf of Black and brown lives, shouldn't everybody be an advocate if that's what you call it nowadays?”

With the academic consensus affirming the movement’s claims of systemic racism, a decades-old professional tenet stands opposed to journalists publicly endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement in their published work: objectivity.

To Bailey, a journalist's decision to endorse movements like BLM is about much more than remaining neutral, it is a moral decision for the betterment of society.

“I think there comes a time where you have to determine what in history is worth standing up for, even if it is to the detriment of your career,” Bailey said. “And I do think that's something that a lot of us older people have the privilege of being able to decide. It may not be that simple for young folks, right?”

Whose Bias?

In the pursuit of the truth, journalists are today taught to cover and report on issues through an objective process, which is generally defined as presenting different perspectives impartially with an emphasis on facts.

However, journalism, as E.J. Dionne wrote in They Only Look Dead, works under contradicting commandments. Journalists are also taught to help the disadvantaged and downtrodden through their work. In wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, journalists are figuring out how to toe the line between shining a light on those hurt by societal injustices while remaining impartial.

Lewis Raven Wallace’s The View from Somewhere explains how objectivity calls reporters to report without having a viewpoint, but explains that’s impossible since everyone has their own experiences that disable them from being completely neutral.

Moreover, complete neutrality is not neutral in journalism.

Rather, neutral is defined by the overt and implicit biases of what is acceptable to the mostly white industry leaders of journalism. As Nesima Aberra said in reviewing Wallace’s book for The Atlantic, the book highlights the struggles of marginalized reporters navigating and working in a white-dominated industry.

"I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of objectivity and how those in power are able to dictate what is truth and what is acceptable in journalism,” Aberra said.

This contradiction has led journalists to question objectivity’s merits. The University of Minnesota Twin Cities’ college newspaper, The Minnesota Daily, Editor-in-Chief Dylan Miettinen had to decide whether to let a reporter of his, who previously reported on the cleanup of the protests following the police killing, participate in the cleanup himself in the wake of Floyd’s death.

“Part of the objective model is that journalists should broadcast the story, not be part of it, but questioning objectivity forces you to recognize that we're people first and journalists second,” Miettentin said. “We are not apathetic entities; we all want the betterment of our communities, because we too are community members.”

As Brett Cunningham wrote in his 2003 Columbia Journalism Review article, journalists are more biased than their objective reporting methods would suggest. In light of the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, newsrooms have started to grapple with their organizational racial biases.

The killings of Black individuals by the police and the ensuing protests have captured national headlines for differing reasons. Articles from the Washington Post entitled, “Police killing black people is a pandemic” and “ Looters smash business windows... after police-involved shooting ” articulate the controversy in coverage on Black Lives Matter in the media, as well as in public discussion.

As Black journalist Wesley Lowery notes in his New York Times Opinion piece, the lack of racial diversity in newsrooms hinders its race coverage as it avoids stating facts — like acknowledging the existence of systemic racism — to avoid drawing accusations of bias. Such anxiety creates an illusion of objectivity.

“Conversations about objectivity … habitually focus on predicting whether a given sentence, opening paragraph or entire article will appear objective to a theoretical reader, who is invariably assumed to be white,” Lowery said in the piece.

The University of Missouri’s college newspaper, The Maneater, created a diversity board to review its hiring practices and its Black Lives Matter protest coverage to combat such biases.

“A lot of it for us is that we recognize that we're college students who don't know everything so we're not afraid to ask questions and look for help,” The Maneater’s Managing Editor Eli Hoff said. “I think a lot of it is being willing to learn and listen, which is what I think makes for good journalism anyway.”

As Brent Cunningham also wrote, journalists are biased mainly towards getting the story. Journalists focus on conflict, event-driven coverage and existing narratives.

On a deeper level, as famed CBS correspondent John Laurence said to Cunningham, journalists are biased towards universal goods — like honesty and courage — and against universal wrongs — like corruption, exploitation or cruelty.

Cunningham stressed that it is important for journalists to understand their biases and the accepted narratives and then work against them. In today’s journalism, the lack of diversity in newsrooms nationwide hinders that effort, which led to The Maneater and The Minnesota Daily’s aforementioned actions.

In letting his reporter participate in the protest clean-up, Miettinen stressed to his reporter he was not to report on site of the event as it would jeopardize his impartiality.

“Being in this process does not make us any less accurate and fair in our reporting,” Miettinen said. “If anything, it makes us more [accurate and fair] because we’re able to come at a story without blinders on.”

Objectivity’s history

Objectivity has not always been a guiding rule in journalism. It was not until the 1920s, brought on by economic hardship and the industry’s failures, that journalists began to implement objective reporting processes.

For much of the 19th century, as freelance Journalist Livia Gershon wrote for Journal Storage last summer, publications featured first-person writing and writers who “expressed their opinions, used flowery language and attempted to instill good morals in their audiences.”

However, a wave of newspaper closings and mergers which started in the 1920s left fewer newspapers per city, as journalism professor Matthew Pressman wrote in his TIME opinion piece discussing objectivity explained. The closures caused the remaining newspapers to change their writing styles to appeal to large populations, as overt partnership would push away readers.

Around the same time, following his analysis of the New York Times’ biased and inaccurate coverage of the Russian Revolution, Walter Lippman became a primary voice urging the media to become more objective, according to journalism historian Sid Bedingfield.

“But … Lippmann said the approach to news gathering should be more scientific. It should be more objective,” Bedingfield said. “You should acknowledge to yourself, your own personal bias, and realize that you need to go out of your way to correct for that, by ensuring that … you are using a more systematic and scientific approach to gathering all of the facts and all of the evidence and interpretations and bringing them together.”

Although Lippmann’s calls for objectivity did not preclude journalists from reaching conclusions or for perfect balance, Bedingfield said, such issues arose in the decades after his analysis.

During the McCarthy era — a period in the early 50s’ where U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy spearheaded a campaign which falsely and purposely accused citizens and government officials of being communists — journalists’ objective coverage aided McCarthy’s false claims by repeating his false accusations, presenting them as another side to a debate instead of as purposeful lies.

The inadequacy of the “he said/she said” McCarthy era reporting is often raised as a hallmark of objectivity’s failures. However, according to Cunningham, journalism’s digital era has brought a slew of new problems — tighter deadlines and less space to provide deeper context and analysis — which incentivizes an over reliance and uncritical use of government sources that characterizes such reporting.

The McCarthy era reporting, with its inadequate application of objectivity, ironically did not shine a light on the downtrodden and failed to live up to a key aspect of journalism - holding the powerful accountable.

The industry has historically failed numerous times in the pursuit of producing objective stories. The New York Times apologized for uncritically disseminating information that pushed America towards the Iraq war, and the journalism industry faced a reckoning over its over-reliance on government sources who did not include the full truth about the war.

A major issue of objective reporting has been a valiant trust of authority figures as reliable sources. Due to their public nature, journalists often rely on police records, town hall meetings and other public documents to craft stories in a timely fashion. Everyone has their own motivations and viewpoints, so questioning authority figures is equally, if not more, important as questioning private sources.

Following George Floyd’s death, news stations both large and small have become more acutely aware that the framing of a story can change its entire narrative, and call their objectivity into question.

In an article published for the Washington Post, reporters Paul Farhi and Elahe Izadi describe that “in their initial public statements about George Floyd’s death… Minneapolis police didn’t mention that one of its officers knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes; it noted only that Floyd “appeared to be suffering medical distress.”

This discrepancy over events that truly occurred and those that public officials decided to describe is what led to a shift in the Minnesota Daily’s reporting. Following the tragic death of George Floyd in his city, Miettinen saw conversations about how to cover social justice movements start to hit home.

“We had student journalists [reporting on protests following the police killing of George Floyd], and I do think that shifted our perspective a little bit. It really forced us to, going back to this idea of objectivity, push against it and question police narratives that, quite frankly, were not always factual and were heavily, heavily biased,” said Miettinen.

Hearing the voices of officials and police officers can be beneficial in reporting a story, but they should not be looked at as the sole arbitrators of truth. Susan Chira, from the Marshall Project in an interview with the Washington Post sums it up best: “The basic [journalistic] principle should be, treat the police like any other source, with the same degree of skepticism as you treat any other source… ‘Police said’ is not a shorthand for truth.”

Looking at the perspectives of all people involved in an event, along with carefully evaluating each source and their motives, may help journalists move towards a more fair and accurate version of reporting. The Maneater is pushing to do just that.

When evaluating how best to cover a march for justice for Black lives, Hoff said The Maneater’s diversity board advised them to “focus on the movement at the core and the people that it's helping, not necessarily the random people who might endorse it or support it or just show up for a photo op.”

The times are once again changing in journalism, according to Miettinen. As social justice movements gain more visibility and support, the media is being challenged to use their platform to give a voice to all community members instead of taking official reports at face value.

“Showing up and engaging with community members shows that we, as a publication, are actively trying to repair some of the damage that objective journalism has historically done to marginalized communities,” said Miettinen. “Journalists are taught to minimize harm, but I think there's a growing recognition that that's not enough: journalists need to do good, too.”

Trying to tell the truth

In the spring of 2019, Chris Dowd started Athens Politics Nerd, an independent media organization with a progressive slant in Athens, Ga., despite having no background or training in journalism. After lobbying with a local grassroots political activist organization to record and publish video recordings of Athens Mayor and Commission, Dowd wanted to inform Athenians about the meetings.

Although clearly distinguishing between opinion and news articles, Dowd said his feelings about whatever he is covering show through his articles. Dowd all the while makes an effort to distance himself from sources, clearly state sources and disclose conflict of interest.

“I think a really extreme pursuit of objectivity can stop you from saying things that are obviously true and are important to people,” Dowd said.

In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, much ire was directed at the phrase “officer-involved shooting.” Although an objectively accurate description, the words do not effectively convey the fact that the police shot someone.

In response to their community forum, the Minnesota Daily has revisited and revised their word choice surrounding social justice movements. Miettinen stresses the importance of looking at a story holistically, rather than turning to official reports, in order to determine what voice most accurately reflects the event and the people involved.

“In relation to Black Lives Matter, [the Minnesota Daily uses] the term ‘police killing…’ to characterize what happened to George Floyd… [where] some publications say he ‘died in police custody…’ I think that's the official one…” said Miettinen. “[It] is not accurate and it’s not good journalism because you're just regurgitating what a source tells you. You have to look at power dynamics and where information is coming from.”

By creating a space for active community involvement and feedback in their newsroom, Miettinen hopes to repair some of the damages caused by a lack of transparency in the media. Responses to newly created public forums have shown that there is often a disconnect between the people in a community and the stories that supposedly reflect them.

“If community members don't feel like their viewpoints, their perspectives, their stories are being highlighted by our news publication, that’s a failure on our end, not a failure of the community. That’s something we need to do better,” said Miettinen. “We... want to make a space for constructive feedback because it's our belief at the Daily that if journalism isn't informed by the community then you’re not adequately serving that community.”

The Minnesota Daily created a monthly public forum so that community members would have a platform to voice their concerns about their newsroom in an effort to help increase transparency in the media. A lack of understanding of newsroom functions adds to the perception that the media is inaccessible.

“I do think one of the biggest flaws of the majority of news organizations is that people just don't get how newsrooms operate. It's that lack of understanding I feel brings about a certain distrust,” said Miettinen. “I can't blame community members for that, I think the blame is on newsrooms to just be more transparent”

Larger news organizations often exacerbate community distrust in the media by coming into a location for a short time to get a story but do little to connect and follow up with the people that they cover. By engaging in ‘parachute journalism’ news outlets build relationships within the areas they are covering for a story, but leave in a fairly short time.

This quick turnaround makes it difficult for reporters to tell a holistic story of the people they are covering, which reflects poorly on the media. This is something the Minnesota Daily hopes to repair in their community.

“We, just like anyone else who lives here, want the best for our communities, so that means covering things equitably and being there for the long haul,” said Miettinen. “I know a lot of national outlets got knocked for their coverage because it was classic parachute journalism, which is just what national outlets do. They drop in for a little bit, covering the story, but we are here to follow the story from the very beginning to the subsequent aftermath.”

“Show your math”

As the questioning and criticism around journalistic objectivity mounts, it is important to break down what endorsing means.

If journalists were to publicly advocate for the support of the Black Lives Matter movement in their published news articles (also known as endorsing), they would effectively be trying to tell their readers what to believe.

Although drawing conclusions at the end of articles is not a foreign concept, outright endorsing Black Lives Matter or anything stands against the point of journalism on a deeper level than its violation of objectivity norms.

According to the President of the Poynter Institute Neil Brown, journalism isn’t designed to tell readers what to do or think, but rather empower them to make the decision of their choice by providing them with clear and sound information.

If they start endorsing people or movements, trying to plant their thought processes in their readers, journalists will become something closer to pundits than independent recorders of fact, which further distances them from their first obligation: the truth.

Additionally, Brown said, endorsing movements entails a level of journalistic arrogance in assuming readers can’t reach a similar conclusion without an endorsement.

For Brown, the best journalism does not tell readers what to believe but rather shows its conclusions by carefully building its case.

“I think the arrogance comes at times when people slip into thinking that the reader won’t get the point unless I hit them over the head with it. That's an arrogance in suggesting the reader can't come to their own judgment, so I have to make the judgment,” Brown said “And so that's why I think ‘show, don’t tell’ is really important. Because if I show it, then the reader should be able to come to a pretty clear conclusion, but it’s up to the reader.”

“The best way for journalists to show their conclusions is through a complete reporting process,” Brown said, “where journalists fairly represent both sides of an argument while including all the necessary context before arriving at their conclusion. Once journalists do that, their reporting should stand on its own.”

In light of U.S. President Donald Trump’s baseless attacks against the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, Politico Chief Political Correspondent Tim Alberta wrote a long-form story about the internal politics of Michigan GOP’s election fraud claims. In the article, Tim reaches his conclusion, condemning GOP politicians who promote allegations of corruption, only after he lays out in great detail their thought process behind the scenes.

Although objectivity does not preclude in-depth reporting — or “dispassionate analysis” as Cunningham said in his article — Brown believes the industry should move towards the idea of complete reporting and away from objectivity.

This is mainly because objectivity has differing definitions among journalists and the objective process does not necessitate the deeper level of reporting that complete reporting entails, along with objectivity’s past problems.

Although complete reporting echoes the ideals of objectivity, it handles applied fairness differently. An old, objective way of measuring fairness in a story is by comparing the number of quotes or column inches in a paper each side is allotted. But, especially because the “sides” on so many issues have become blurred, Brown argues journalists should dig deeper.

“It's not just a matter if I give you six inches of space, and I give him or her six inches [and saying] that’s equal. No, it depends,” Brown said. “If their sources are flawed, then mimicking what they say is not authoritative and not really equal. That would be incomplete if somebody can produce more material about one side having a greater authority than the other side.”

In its best form, journalism serves as a check on powerful people and institutions, an inquiry on the facts of any given topic and as a voice of the voiceless. Although objectivity tries to aid in those endeavors, its flaws can undercut the pursuit of journalism’s goals.

Given objectivity’s problems, journalists may feel obliged to outright endorse BLM, but that would be a misstep. Complete reporting’s deeper necessitation of the truth better presents the truth than any journalist’s personal endorsement in their news piece could.

Additionally, personally endorsing BLM would further increase accusations of bias in the media landscape.

Although reaching similar conclusions through complete reporting can lead to similar accusations of bias, it is ironically part of the solution to fixing America’s polarization in Brown’s opinion.

Drawing on the language of Amanda Ripley’s essay, Brown said journalists need to “complicate the narrative,” explaining many different points of view with nuance, to increase the dialogue about today’s issues. Narratives are best complicated through complete reporting, rather than endorsements.

“Here's the reality, in journalism, [we] teach that we're supposed to synthesize things down to a digestible form of clarity. The world has become more complex where we have to make space for complications,” Brown said. “It's when we decide there are no complications that you could almost always run into either bias or lack of factual information.”

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