Objectivity (journalism) - History

History

The term objectivity was not applied to journalistic work until the 20th century, but it had fully emerged as a guiding principle by the 1890s. A number of communication scholars and historians, Michael Schudson among others, agree that the idea of "objectivity" has prevailed as a dominant discourse among journalists in the United States since the appearance of modern newspapers in the Jacksonian Era of the 1830s, which transformed the press in relation to the democratization of politics, the expansion of a market economy, and the growing authority of an entrepreneurial, urban middle class. Before then, objectivity was not an issue. American newspapers were expected to present a partisan viewpoint, not a neutral one. But into the first decade of the twentieth century, even at The New York Times, it was uncommon for to see a sharp divide between facts and values. Before World War I, journalists did not think much about the subjectivity of perception. They believed that facts are not human statements about the world but aspects of the world itself. After the war, however, this changed. Journalists, like others, lost faith in verities a democratic market society had taken for granted. The experience of propaganda during the war convinced them that the world they reported was one that interested parties had constructed for them to report. In the twenties and thirties, many journalists observed that facts themselves, or what they had taken to be facts, could not ne trusted. One response to this discomfiting view was “objectivity”. Facts were no longer understood as aspects of the world, but consensually validated statements about it. Thus, from the 1920s on, the idea that human beings individually and collectively construct the reality they deal with has held a central position to social thought and encouraged a more sophisticated ideal of “objectivity” among journalists.

Some historians, like Gerald Baldasty, have observed that "objectivity" went hand in hand with the need to make profits in the newspaper business by selling advertising. Publishers did not want to offend any potential advertising customers and therefore encouraged news editors and reporters to strive to present all sides of an issue and more of the bright side of life. Advertisers was reminding the press that partisanship hurts circulation, and, consequently, advertising revenues.

Ben H. Bagdikian writes critically about the consequences of the rise of "objective journalism."

Others have proposed a political explanation for the rise of objectivity, which occurred earlier in the United States than most other countries; scholars like Richard Kaplan have argued that political parties needed to lose their hold over the loyalties of voters and the institutions of government before the press could feel free to offer a nonpartisan, "impartial" account of news events. This change occurred following the critical election of 1896 and the subsequent Progressive reform era.