Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism

by David T.Z. Mindich

Draws a history of journalism's most respected tenet―objectivity

If American journalism were a religion, as it has been called, then its supreme deity would be "objectivity." The high priests of the profession worship the concept, while the iconoclasts of advocacy journalism, new journalism, and cyberjournalism consider objectivity a golden calf. Meanwhile, a groundswell of tabloids and talk shows and the increasing infringement of market concerns make a renewed discussion of the validity, possibility, and aim of objectivity a crucial pursuit.

Despite its position as the orbital sun of journalistic ethics, objectivity―until now―has had no historian. David T. Z. Mindich reaches back to the nineteenth century to recover the lost history and meaning of this central tenet of American journalism. His book draws on high profile cases, showing the degree to which journalism and its evolving commitment to objectivity altered–and in some cases limited―the public's understanding of events and issues. Mindich devotes each chapter to a particular component of this ethic–detachment, nonpartisanship, the inverted pyramid style, facticity, and balance. Through this combination of history and cultural criticism, Mindich provides a profound meditation on the structure, promise, and limits of objectivity in the age of cybermedia.

Genres: History, Journalism, Nonfiction, Politics

200 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1998

About the author

avid Mindich is a professor of media studies, journalism & digital arts. He has been at Saint Michael's College since 1996 and has served nine of those years as chair, ending in 2012.

Before coming to St. Michael's, Mindich worked as an assignment editor for CNN and earned a doctorate in American Studies from New York University. He has written articles for the Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Wilson Quarterly, and other publications. He is the author of Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism and Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News (Oxford University Press, 2005), a book Walter Cronkite called "very important....a handbook for the desperately needed attempt to inspire in the young generation a curiosity that generates the news habit."

Since the publication of Tuned Out, Mindich has given talks about young people and news to media groups (including the New York Times and USA Today) and at schools around the country.

Mindich founded Jhistory, an Internet group for journalism historians, in 1994. In 1998-1999, he was head of the History Division of the AEJMC. In 2002, the AEJMC awarded Mindich the Krieghbaum Under-40 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research, Teaching and Public Service. In 2006, CASE and the Carnegie Foundation named Mindich the Vermont Professor of the Year. In 2011, he was named New England Journalism Educator of the Year by the New England Newspaper & Press Association.

Reviews

[Peter Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Just the Facts: How “Objectivity” Came to Define American Journalism,” by David T. Z. Mindich (New York University press, 1998). For me, a very important book. Clearly derived from a doctoral dissertation---by now I recognize the format: first explain; then go over the existing literature; then explain what you are going to say in each chapter; say it; then say it again, and on to the next chapter. Mindich argues that there are five elements to American “objectivity” (which is all our idea, no one else’s). He goes through the textbooks and the literature to discover what journalists mean. He says there are five components, and examines each historically: detachment, so the facts are telling the story, not the journalist’s preconceived notions; non-partisanship, “both sides” of “each story”---that the writer is not following one or another political party; the inverted pyramid, that the reader gets the most important facts at the beginning of the story (which he says was actually invented by Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln’s secretary of war. Before him, writers treated everything chronologically, so you didn’t get to the important points until deep in the story); naïve empiricism: reliance on “facts” to get at the “truth” of events; and finally balance, which means undistorted reporting. He examines the development of each one historically: from the early newspapers which just gave information, not political argument; how the development of things such as the AP meant stories had to be acceptable to all sorts of newspapers; that getting the important info in first made stories blunter, more easily comprehensible, quicker; etc. Eventually he argues that the mantra of “objectivity” failed for covering race relations in the US, because white male reporters assumed that Negros who were lynched had in fact raped or assaulted white women, and the only problem was the lack of legal usages. He talks about the black journalist Ida B. Wells, who went to the scenes and reported the facts of so-called rapes and discovered that they were almost always false, that the black men had not done what they were accused of doing. The elite white press, defending “civilization,” could not accept what she found, and essentially ignored it. He writes that we are currently in a “post-objective” age, because of all the sources and all the writers. This book was written a decade before the web really became ubiquitous, and his arguments still hold---even more so. Nevertheless, I disagree: the concept of “objectivity,” which is impossible to achieve, will always be crucial to responsible, truly informative journalism. The problem of true balance and diversity exposed by the story of Ida B. Wells is today being addressed in a robust way, as responsible journalists try too expand their sources and their understanding of stories. He does point out that one problem of “objectivity” is that it makes journalists overly dependent on authoritative sources, government, “experts.” But that is a matter good journalists fight against as much as they can. It’s an unending battle, buy the concept of “objectivity” will always be close to the root.

http://academics.smcvt.edu/dmindich/