How Philosophy Can Make Journalism Better
In the so-called “Post-Truth” age when some segments of the population doubt the credibility of the legacy press and are therefore susceptible to the untruths spread by both President Trump and unscrupulous partisan websites, journalists will have to work harder to breakdown the existing barrier of civilian distrust in order to counteract these inventions with factual reporting.
The sort of deeply researched investigative work we have seen in the past two-years, although far from flawless, desperately needs to continue. There is of course, always room for improvement. In the area of news analysis for example, journalism can benefit from the input of academic philosophers.
Since the turn of the 21st century, academic Anglo-American philosophy has been uniquely characterized by both technical analysis and hyper-specialization. Ph.D holders are trained to publish scholarly work that displays — at the highest-level of human capability — conceptual clarity, coherence in writing, rigor of argumentation, and technical erudition in the use of sophisticated symbolic logic to determine the validity of arguments.
In addition to developing technical skills for the purpose of scholarly analysis, academic philosophers are expected to have an authoritative knowledge of the current scholarship within extremely narrow sub-fields of study to which they will dedicate most, if not all, of their careers. Because of this cognitively demanding but exceptional training, contemporary philosophers are distinct among academics in that they are best positioned to “draw the lines at which sense ends and nonsense begins”.
There are two main ways in which analytic philosophy can make news analysis, particularly opinion journalism, better. First, philosophers can draw out the philosophical implications of stories in the news, and secondly, by restricting journalists to precise concepts and valid arguments, philosophers can improve the work of public advocacy journalists undertake (especially editorial boards) for the public interest both at home and abroad.
Let’s start with the first point: Because of the breadth of topics academic philosophers cover, they are able not only to identify philosophical ideas in the news that editors might miss but also help journalists do the explanatory work of articulating the significance of those ideas and why they make sense of the world.
One way in which philosophers can help journalists make better sense of the world is by clarifying the meaning, and appropriate usage of key concepts, which when misused prevent interlocutors in a debate from making significant progress on an issue. ‘Gun control’ (for example) is just one of many buzzwords currently clouding political discourse and contributing to the stifling of political progress. Philosophers can bring an end to this confusion by delineating when, and when not, to use other heavy-loaded — but loosely employed — terms such as racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobe, etc.…
In addition to improving the language that journalists use, philosophers can improve the arguments that journalists make. They can prevent errors in thinking which often lead otherwise smart news commentators and their followers to bad conclusions about what to think and how to respond to a political issue.
Beyond explaining how the world is, with the help of the logical tools at their disposal, philosophers can also help columnists put together various arguments that explain how the world ought to be. On the global stage, philosophers can, for example, help foreign policy experts (many of them journalists) think more rigorously about the ethics of war, particularly whether to consider an emerging conflict an ‘unjust war.’
At the more local level, philosophers can assist journalists interested in social justice issues, such as those concerning the criminal justice system, do a better job of explaining the moral failures at work in society, as well as construct coherent arguments that more successfully defend their proposed solutions to these problems.
There are many other issues that journalists cover on a regular basis to which philosophers can lend their expertise; but it is important to recognize that this is not simply about ameliorating the services that the news industry provides to the public. Philosophy itself matters. One can only hope that the news media provides a powerful vehicle for consequential and world-changing philosophical ideas to reach a much broader audience, inspiring and provoking people to action, while strengthening journalists to boldly confront the challenges of this quickly changing world.
