Human-Eyes
Re-Imagine, Re-Define, Human-Eyes
Our Problem Statement:
How do we demystify the enshrined illusion of objectivity in the news media?
What is Human-Eyes?
Human-Eyes is a news platform model that completely re-imagines the definition of journalism and traditional approach to journalistic writing.
Why? What’s the problem?
According to the Purdue Owl page on journalism and journalistic writing, “the most important difference between journalism and other forms of non-fiction writing is the idea of objectivity. Journalists are expected to keep an objective mindset at all times as they interview sources, research events, and write and report their stories.”
As journalism students, our professors and textbooks always emphasize the cruciality of objectivity. We have first hand experience of being taught to remain impartial and to leave our own voice and opinions out of our writing.
However…
What does “objectivity” even mean? Is it even possible to be objective? Because of what we’ve learnt over the course of this semester, we argue that “objectivity” is a falsehood. It not only is unfair to marginalized communities (as their voices are delegitimized by the notion of having to “show both sides”), but also instigates media distrust. Readers will nevertheless detect bias because objectivity does not truly exist, and therefore they may be offended by writing that either does not align with their intrinsic biases, or leaves out their point of view. Because that writing is supposed to be “objective,” they may retaliate with unhealthily charged discourse.
How is “objectivity” an illusion? (Our research and resources)
Chris Farone of DigBoston:
Farone pointed out when he talked to the class that the idea of “objectivity” is a falsehood. Instead, he sees value in honoring transparency to combat the obscurity that comes with objectivity.
Alexandra Bell’s video “Rewriting Racist Headlines:”
Her project showed how language is always going to have an intrinsic connotation depending on which words are chosen and how they are strung together to form meaning. Furthermore, the way news organizations format their paper or website has an extreme impact on the message that they are sending. Therefore, journalism simply cannot be objective.
The Nieman Reports article “Where Does Journalism End and Activism Begin”:
Reporter Michael Blanding demonstrates how the idea of journalists needing to showing both sides in order to be “objective” is fallacious because not everything has an equally legitimate or constructive “two sides.” Furthermore, this article explained how simply by choosing what stories and events should be prioritized over others, and also what angle of that story the journalist focuses on, news platforms are not being “objective.” This idea is elaborated in the article by Teen Vogue’s executive editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay, stating: “We show our point of view by the editorial choices we make, by the subjects we cover.”
The New York Times article: “Is It Possible for a Writer to be Objective?”
Writer Pankaj Mishra argues that “perhaps we’ll have to renounce the fetish of objectivity,” an Enlightenment notion of objective standards when “a few like-minded men upheld science as the key to individual freedom and began to hope that universal reason would replace the evidently sectarian points of view of religious faith or superstition.”
Obviously, much has happened since the Enlightenment. Theorists and thinkers have “revealed that individual selves as well as human societies are stubbornly plural”(Mishra).
This also demonstrates how the notion of objectivity is created by and beneficial for a select “few like-minded men,” which can be problematic when utilized to cover minorities.
Theorists and Philosophers (the nitty gritty): Nietzhe, Althusser
Nietszhe: “there are no facts, only interpretations, and furthermore, those interpretations thrive not because they are evenhanded or fair, but because they have a brute strength of consensus behind them.”
Althusser: argues that essentially everything is subjective ideology, which seem “real” or “like the truth” because they manifest through material representations and apparatuses and are therefore accepted as “true social constructs.” If “objective truth” cannot exist without first being constructed by humans, then the idea of objectivity is a paradox in itself.
Therefore, the faulty correlation between “journalism” and “objectivity” need to be addressed and the fundamental systems of journalism reimagined.
Statement of Change
Instead of enforcing the ideal of objectivity, our platform will focus on transparency and the authenticity of the journalist which humanizes them instead of forcing them to embody this robotic figure.
The Big Idea (Our Solution)
To combat this, our team has reimagined the typical journalism platform (e.g. The New York Times and The Washington Post websites). Our mock platform will serve as a model for journalists and media outlets going forward in an attempt to combat detrimentally brought by the notion of “objectivity” that journalism is currently defined by.
The name of the platform is Human-Eyes. It is a play on the word “humanize,” where we combine it with“eyes.” This shows our attempts to humanize the journalist, rather than have journalists embody the ‘objective robot’ impossible role. Journalists will now be writing “through their eyes,” reflecting what they believe, saw, and/or think.
There are four parts to our solution:
- Journalists will write from a first person perspective
In an attempt to be completely transparent, journalists will be asked to write in a first person perspective, using the statements such as: I think, I saw, I believe, in my opinion, they told me etc.
The first person perspective leaves no room for obscurity, making the journalist fully responsible for their reporting. Through rejecting the idea that a journalist cannot exert themselves in articles, we disassemble the false notion of “objective” reporting.
The journalist is humanized, accountable, and representing their own take on the issue. The nature of the work — whether a straight news story or a highly opinionated argumentative piece are both held to the same standards of transparency, and are asked to be written using first person pronouns.
2. The inclusion of an in-depth, self written, reviewed bio for each of the journalists
At the end of each article, there will be an image of the journalist and a self-written, but reviewed explanation of their stance on the issue they are covering. It is reviewed by editors to ensure that their stance is in alignment with their article.
Furthermore, if audiences would like to know more about this journalist (e.g. their background in journalism, their biographical background, any other pertinent information, outside testimonials and critical reviews, positive and negative, on the journalist), they are able to click on the hyperlink on the journalist’s image and arrive at one of our “Our Writers” pages.
Another notable aspect of the fallacious notion of “objectivity” is how journalists are not allowed to cover stories that directly involve them are they are actively involved in. For example, Toronto Star columnist Desmond Cole, who covered issues of police harassment of African-Americans, left the paper after being reprimanded for staging a protest at a police board hearing. The paper’s publisher told him that he was too involved in racial issues. This brings up key questions about representation that were also noted by DigBoston editor Chris Farone.
If we don’t allow journalists to cover stories that affect them personally, who else is going to be able to represent that community’s authentic voice?
Therefore, by placing a focus on transparency and plainly stating that the journalists involvement with the issue, not only is the journalist held accountable, but communities will also be better represented. Furthermore, the issue of distrust because of the idea that the reader may be deceived by a journalist hiding behind a veil of objectivity while being affected by issue or has an opinion on the issue (as we all have) is combated.
3. An “About” section for the publication
One concern that journalists and publications may have is that because the audience may not understand our vision going in, they could could deem our reporting “unreliable” or “too opinionated, and could get offended and/or feel deceived by what they see.
Therefore, we have decided to create an “About Us” section where we address our vision of transparency over objectivity, and explain why the affiliation journalism has with objectivity is problematic for profession. To encourage our site visitors to read the “About” section, a pop-up of it will appear when website first opens.
4. Commenting
Because we have a focus on transparency, we would also like to foster an environment that encourages healthy civic discourse — something that journalism should promote as it is the primary way citizens receive important information. However, it is losing that aspect because of the illusion of objectivity and distrust—fostering instead, toxic, unhealthy discourse.
In order to bring this back, the publication’s audience can make accounts and comment on the articles and challenge the (transparent) viewpoints of the journalist. However, the comments will be constantly moderated and if they are overly hateful, they will be deleted. If the account is associated with up to three hateful comments, they will lose the privilege of commenting.
We also believe of the importance of being transparent with our definition of “hateful” comments, and therefore will include them in the “About” section (as shown in the image above.)
Our definition: Comments that have no constructive value and/or include derogatory terminology, and/or personally attack the writer and/or other commenters.
Paul Mihailidis, Journalism Dept. professor at Emerson College and Salzburg Global Seminar program director, recommended to us another step that will help us reach the height of transparency: having the audience be the ones determining which comments are hateful. They will be able to report and fill out a form explaining why this comment falls under the definition of hateful we gave as a guideline in the “About” section.
To sum up: By being transparent, we tell the reader: we, journalists, are not robots. We are humans who have opinions. We are humans who use a language that will always have an intrinsic leaning or influential quality depending on its syntax, or by prioritizing some groups of words (stories, paragraphs) over others. However, this is okay. Journalism does not have to be robotic or objective, and in fact, being transparent in regards to our biases, points of view, and values is more constructive than trying to force the impossible idealized notion of objective writing that “reflects both sides.”
Therefore, we believe our platform model will help journalists be able to report with more freedom to express their ideas and for activism, identity, and responsibility. It will also allow the audience to stop feeling like they are being deceived by news that is supposed to be “objective,” but obviously is not because it cannot be.
Re-Imagine, Re-Define, Human-Eyes
Outtakes and Brainstorming Process
After discussing, our team decided on what we believed were the three biggest problems with journalism today:
- The lack of accurate community representation: media corporations and journalists not understanding issues and only being able to reflect a generic point of view
- Objectivity as a false veil that journalists report behind
- Communities not being covered at all (the emergence of news deserts)
After surveying our peers to discover what they thought the issues with journalism are, we found that many believed journalists were to partisan and not “objective.” They also believe that news stories are impersonal and not interesting, especially when they only cover the same issues such as what is happening in the White House.
Therefore, we decided to focus on the issue #2: objectivity as a false veil that journalists report behind. This topic resonated with the most as well because we, as journalism students, wanted to question why we are continuously taught that there is only one specific (objective) way to cover the news.
Our journey to create Human-Eyes took a lot of thought. We jumped from idea to idea; from news deserts and underrepresented areas, to a journalistic United Nations that would celebrate diversity and hopefully solve the problem of representation and false information in news media.
However, we were thinking too big. We needed to come up with something actually tangible. Something small, but transformational at the same time.
We went back and closed in on the root of the problem with journalism: a blind belief in objectivity when really no such thing exists.
We turned to social media and asked our followers if they felt news sources were “objective.” In this era of media distrust, we were unsurprised that the majority of them said no.
We then asked ourselves if there was a way to debunk the idea that all news should be objective. Our three big ideas included giving journalists a profile page, writing stories in a narrative style, and allowing journalists to pitch their own stories and allow them to write in creative, expressive angles.
Ultimately we, we decided to create a website that represented an amalgamation of all these ideas because they go hand in hand.
We then drafted up our statement of change: Instead of enforcing the ideal of objectivity, our platform will focus on transparency and the authenticity of the journalist which humanizes them instead of forcing them to embody this impossible robotic figure.
Lastly, we deliberated what exactly the final product would look like; what elements would it have? We narrowed this down to four specific points: writing in a first person narrative style, a personal bio for all of our journalists, an “About” page to inform and spread our vision and include a disclaimer, and a commenting section.
These four elements of our model for news platforms work well together to combat objectivity with transparency. The journalist is humanized, the readers are incentivized, and journalism is to be redefined!
The Team:
Jenna Triest
Anna Brenner
Carol Rangel
Courtney Donohue
Nate Lentocha
