dyn.politico.com — AP has decided that "fair and balanced" reporting is out. The new head of the Washington bureau encourages reporters to write in first person and make personal analyses of the story rather than just reporting the facts.
Jul 15, 2008 View in Crawl 4
amyvernonJul 15, 2008
it is a slippery slope. but i didn't see any specific examples in the article that crossed the line between bias and being honest. there is something to be said for not just simply repeating statements from politicos that are bald-faced lies. it's just a tough line to walk and i fear most, eventually, will go sliding down that hill into the land of bias...
biggsuccessJul 16, 2008
When I prepared radio newscasts, I would actually edit out cleverly added adjectives from AP stories that would add a twinge of opinion. They've been doing this for quite some time.
silenceisfooJul 16, 2008
This isn't exactly news. (Pun intended) The AP has been pushing opinion for quite awhile.
jcorn1Jul 17, 2008
This is a tough one. Unbiased? Totally objective? Hmmm....there is a term, "citizen journalist", and many news stories have been written by people experiencing events, including those going about to undergo heart surgery (before and after) as well as those who've gone through Hurricane Katrina, etc. What is the line between inserting one's opinion into a story and still connecting it to the main issues and facts...and putting in personal opinion and connecting with readers on some level, even if one also includes statistics and facts about how many people get cancer, have heart disease,etc...into the mix? Is it no longer news if any personal opinion is inserted?
jcorn1Jul 17, 2008
Here is the dilemma as I see it. How does one report the news and stay totally objective when in the midst of Hurricane Katrina or while reporting (as Walter Cronkite did) the information about President Kennedy's assassination? There is reporting the facts, as all good reporters should do, and then there is nonverbal and other communication which provides context about what the reporter feels about the story. I don't see how that can be eliminated completely, although one could try.
jerichosamJul 17, 2008
True. I'm thinking also of word choices that reflect a reporter's views. A recent example that comes to mind is from a story in which a candidate "continues to insist that ...." What he "continued to insist" doesn't really matter, but the connotation that the reporter disagrees or disapproves is unmistakable. BTW, the opposing candidate was described in more favorable terms in the same report.