{"id":14771,"date":"2011-10-03T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=14771"},"modified":"2011-09-26T21:13:08","modified_gmt":"2011-09-26T20:13:08","slug":"brian-stelter-and-the-pathology-of-objectivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2011\/10\/brian-stelter-and-the-pathology-of-objectivity\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Stelter and the Pathology of Objectivity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night [24 Sep 2011], the New York Times\u2019\u00a0<\/em>Brian Stelter tweeted<\/a>\u00a0about the Occupy Wall Street<\/a> protests, which have been ongoing for over a week now, but seemed to reach a tipping point yesterday. Stelter wrote<\/a>, \u201c2 hours ago Union Sq was the scene of an ugly battle btwn\u00a0#<\/span>OccupyWallSt<\/a>\u00a0protesters & police,\u201d followed by a link to a YouTube video entitled \u201cOccupy Wall Street Police Abuse.\u201d The video<\/a> depicts officers shoving and arresting protesters, as well as using some kind of makeshift orange net to corral them into a pen.<\/p>\n

I was struck by the term Stelter used to described the altercations: \u201cbattle\u201d. As I understand it, if a \u201cbattle\u201d is taking place, that means at least two aggressors are \u201cbattling\u201d one another. Which would seem to be an odd characterization of yesterday\u2019s events. I wasn\u2019t there, but all the first-hand reports, news stories, video, and eyewitness testimonies suggest that the NYPD was quite clearly responsible for escalating tension, at least in certain instances \u2014 such as when several female protesters were indiscriminately maced<\/a>\u00a0in the face.<\/p>\n

So I had a question for Stelter \u2014 what evidence indicated to him that a \u201cbattle\u201d had taken place yesterday, or in other words, what evidence indicated that protesters had \u201cbattled\u201d police? Again, the term \u201cbattle\u201d implies the participation of at least two parties, but there is no reason (as yet) to believe that protesters attacked police. Here\u2019s what Stelter said<\/a> in response: \u201cI used the word \u201cbattle\u201d in an attempt not to judge either side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s think about this. \u201cIn an attempt not to judge either side,\u201d Stelter characterized both sides as \u201cbattlers.\u201d How is that not a judgment in and of itself? There is clear evidence that police attacked protesters, but no evidence that protesters attacked police, yet Stelter casts both in exactly the same light because he presumably feels that upholding a sacred standard of impartiality is his prime\u00a0journalistic\u00a0duty. Even with video evidence <\/em>available, Stelter shies away from accurately conveying what transpired, because it\u2019s of paramount importance to remain \u201cimpartial,\u201d no matter what, always.<\/p>\n

This is a perfect manifestation of the pathology of\u00a0objectivity. Stelter evidently was not interested in accurately portraying the facts. Rather, he obscured them.<\/p>\n

For all its faults, I generally like the NYT, and if Stelter just admitted that his tweet mischaracterized yesterday\u2019s events, I\u2019d consider it a forgivable offense. But this morning, Stelter\u00a0denied<\/a> that he was even reporting in the first place: \u201c\u2026please don\u2019t misstate what happened,\u201d he said. \u201cI tweeted a video link; I didn\u2019t \u2018report.\u2019 \u00a0I haven\u2019t been at the protests to report.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ah, so being physically present at the protests is a requirement for carrying out reporting, but not for relaying and characterizing information related to the protests. Because the latter is exactly what Stelter did last night. Maybe Stelter should have gone down to Union Square before surmising that protesters were \u201cbattling\u201d police, because he likely would have observed otherwise.<\/p>\n

Further, Stelter implicitly claims that relaying and characterizing information via Twitter somehow doesn\u2019t constitute \u201creporting,\u201d which is odd, because Stelter is widely known for heralding<\/a> Twitter as a reporting medium. That argument holds no water whatsoever.<\/p>\n

In fairness, this is just another\u00a0symptom of the \u201cobjectivity\u201d malady that so many mainstream\u00a0journalists, including Stelter<\/a>,\u00a0still blissfully affirm. I don\u2019t blame Stelter himself so much as the mindset he\u2019s been inculcated with. But perhaps he should reexamine his reporting philosophy, because when Gawker<\/a> proves able to relay factual information more accurately than the New York Times<\/em>, there might be a problem.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 mctracey.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I had a question for Stelter \u2014 what evidence indicated to him that a \u201cbattle\u201d had taken place yesterday, or in other words, what evidence indicated that protesters had \u201cbattled\u201d police? Again, the term \u201cbattle\u201d implies the participation of at least two parties, but there is no reason (as yet) to believe that protesters attacked police. Here\u2019s what Stelter said in response: \u201cI used the word \u201cbattle\u201d in an attempt not to judge either side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14771\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}