I received a question this week from a student, asking whether she should cast a ballot, given that she's a journalist. "Does it hinder my ability to be objective," she asked.
This is an interesting effort at transparency from Slate, the online magazine.
What do you think of this? Frankly, I remain a bit unsure myself. I voted when I was a reporter, mainly because the mere act of voting didn't seem to threaten my objectivity. In fact, I was usually better at being fair when I was honest with myself and others about my own opinions.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Journalists and voting
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2 comments:
I don't think that voting encourages bias in journalistic writing. I think that voting and then writing about that candidate without acknowledging the other side is bias. As stated in the Slate article, having an opinion is not biased. If a reporter is alert to the difference between having an opinion and writing about their opinion in anything other than an op ed article, I see no problem in that reporter casting a vote.
Fact of life: All journalists are inherently bias (because they're human and not robots). So, get over it. There's no such thing as objectivity. How you frame a story, what quotes you use, what words you use are all forms of bias. So, if you don't want to vote, don't vote. But if you don't vote, you're failing your duty as a citizen of a democracy.
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