Submission #13: Should journalists take sides?

Journalistic objectivity is a principle of journalistic professionalism. It requires journalists to be objective, accurate and investigative in the way they presents information and relays facts to the public; rather than subjective and biased. But the question is should journalists have the ability to take sides in their piece? After all, they are doing all this research to compose an article, somewhere along the way; they must have formed an opinion on the matter or have chosen a side. This is where ethics and morality comes in; would journalists be fooling the public in some way if they published articles that favored the side that the journalists themselves support?

There are many arguments for journalistic objectivity, one of them being that journalists represent the company they write for. For example, if Fox News publishes an article that is pro- Donald Trump, many people are going to see it as if Fox News supports Donald Trump (they probably do but that’s beside the point), rather than just the journalist supporting Donald Trump themselves. What journalists write and what gets published is reflected on the company as a whole, not just the person writing the article. This leads to problems because if a journalist writes a piece that conflicts with the company’s existing values and morals, and gets published, it can cause controversy around the company because people will say that they are being a hypocrite by showing themselves one thing but publishing an article or something that directly clashes with their already publicized perspective. Rather than getting mad at the journalist, society will get mad at the company for approving this is be published and represented as the thoughts of the company as a whole.

But, should journalists have the freedom to put their own two cents into a piece so that it has sustenance, and is not just pages of straight facts. In my opinion, I believe that journalists should have the right to be subjective in their work and write about what they want to write, but they should do it through a private platform such as a blog, not on a public, social level such as a magazine; especially if it conflicts with the view set by the company they work for. A different side to this argument is seen in an article written by Giles Fraser for The Guardian. His article argues that if journalists don’t show their emotions in work, they are not giving the public the whole picture. It argues that writing, especially journalism is about emotion and portraying that emotion through words, so that the reader can also feel the same emotion. I think untimely it’s up to the reader if they want to read subjective work or work that is objective.