Ethics of Objectivity in Journalism

A journalist from Baltimore once said " the objective viewpoint is the one that agrees with mine."  To some degree objectivity in journalism is a fantasy.  As humans by nature we have biased views and affiliations.  So journalists (as humans, we think anyways) are biased. 

 I suppose because of it's inherent nature we put so much enfasis on the idea of objectivity in the news.  Its the duty of news organizations not to deceive the pubic or their audiences, and we feel the best way for them NOT to do that is by presenting both sides of the stories that are published.  For a journalist to do his job objectively he should represent voices from both sides or even multiple sides of an issue, that way a reader can come to a fair or balanced conclusion. 

 In our Comms 239 class some of us came to agree that journalists are not objective but their methods or form of journalism can be.  

This focus on objectivity some what bothers me.  As I continue to read and view multiple news sources i notice that objectivity leaves me unfulfilled or with a vague view of what the real picture is.   A program that i feel proves my point is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

  I understand that it is a mock news source but in its subjectivity it makes strong affirmative statements about how things really are. An objective approach is hesitant to make affirmative statements in fear that it might be wrong.  Last week Jon Stewart criticized CNN for a lack of fact checking on their part.  Those sort of things are good for the public to know, and it takes a subjective approach to do that.  

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-12-2009/cnn-leaves-it-there

Another example, and its kind of an extreme one, is Bush and the Iraq War. The media continually published and objective view of the facts or on what the government was telling the public.  Of the few news organizations that investigated and tried to portray a subjective view point and make an affirmative statement that the president was wrong were hardly ever published.  

Regarding objectivity: it's a good general rule that probably should be followed most of the time, however; focusing on the ethics of it journalists loose perspective of the picture they are really portraying to their audiences and of the picture the public really might need to see.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=objectivity%20in%20journalism&oe=UTF-8&safe=active&um=1&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iv&start=0#