Objectivity would be nice

Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, millions of concerned Americans and more than a billion Muslims worldwide can sigh in relief. Pastor Terry Jones abandoned his vile plan to sensationally and offensively commemorate Sept. 11 by burning Qurans.

In the wake of this near disaster for the safety of American military forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and domestic religious toleration, we are left with some difficult questions to ask ourselves.

Foremost among them: “How did a 50-member congregation manage to hold the world hostage as it attempted to use its bonfire as leverage to relocate the mosque near Ground Zero?“

The causes are varied, and none alone could have elevated this small church’s publicity stunt to the world stage.

The role of the media also deserves some scrutiny. The way it presented the “International Burn a Koran Day” could lend some insight into whether the coverage was objective and whether the media inadvertently aided the pastor in his mission.

Is objectivity presenting facts simply as they are? “The pastor is burning the Quran,” for example.

We can quickly see that this definition doesn’t always hold. It fails to
include the relative newsworthiness of certain events.

If I were broadcast on Fox News, for example, because I was walking to class, no one could say this was an inaccurate portrayal of what happened on a given weekday, but it would hardly give viewers an objectively good sense of the day’s happenings and their comparative importance.

The public probably does (or at least should) invest more concern in the wellbeing of the environment, government corruption in Afghanistan and the
national unemployment rate.

Even newsworthiness cannot be a sufficient condition for deciding what stories merit coverage. If a newscast selects only to cover one of Glenn Beck’s rallies and Sarah Palin’s new book, the newscast hardly qualifies as objective.

Objectivity requires that news be presented in a way that is holistically fair and balanced.

Glenn Beck may have attracted an audience of thousands and Sarah Palin may have sold many books, but other people who are guided by different principles probably did meaningful things during the same news cycle.

Ignoring their actions presents just as subjective a view of the news as one that ignores the relative importance of certain actions.

Because the requirements for objectivity are numerous, it should surprise no one that it’s nearly impossible for any news to be truly objective.

Yet that’s not to say the media can be faulted for covering Pastor Jones’ plans. A contrivance to give offence to adherents of the world’s second largest religion, at a time when they have recently been subject to intolerance in the United States, certainly merits public concern.

Did the media inevitably make Pastor Jones a story in the act of reporting on him?

Perhaps.

The solution, however, lies not in censoring the media, but rather in understanding the inherent lack of objectivity implied in reporting on any person or event.

When we are more skeptical of the way the news is reported, we will be more able to be agents in making a positive change in the world.


E-mail: wallacen@indiana.edu