Mar 07 2007
Are Journalists Objective?
Q: How to tell whether the public trust journalists? To be more precise, what do public think of whether journalists working for reputable media company are sufficiently faithful to truth and, thus, more objective?
Answer: In a high-profile, crucial trial, given a choice between a journalist and someone else (depends on who you are comparing journalists to, e.g. a univ. professor?), who would BOTH sides accept as a juror?
Inspiration: one of the jurors, Dan Collins, in the Libby case was an ex-WP reporter.
Hypothesis/reasoning:
Lawyers on both sides will choose a reporter (from a reputable organization) over all others because they are trained to be conscious of (if not to surpress) their personal judgement in reflecting on the facts.
1. Lawyers are professionals who are in a high risks/high return business. Their judgement of who is objective is perhaps the best one can find on the market.
2. High-profile trials (or trial by media) represents the judgement of the “silent majority”. Lawyers are less likely to choose fringe characters in fear of being ridiculed afterwards.
Why this matters:
It is one way to tell whether journalism is a reputable profession.