Human-Eyes

We See It, I Write It, You Read It

Courtney Donohue

Published in

reimaginingjournalism

10 min readDec 12, 2019

Our Problem

How do we demystify the enshrined illusion of objectivity in the news media?

Brainstorming

We originally came up with three initial issues that stood out to us.

Big corporations not understanding issues and only being able to reflect one point of view that may not be accurate for everyone
Objectivity as a false veil that journalists report behind
Communities not being covered at all (the emergence of news deserts)

Through our surveys, we found out how distrust correlates to this topic of objectivity. People get angry not when journalists are not “objective,” because that is what society believes a journalist should be. Furthermore, as journalism students, we have first hand experience of being taught to remain impartial and to leave our own voice and opinions out of our writing. However, this makes a story robotic and bland, making readers feel disconnected, and is also very directly fosters media distrust that is a result from readers detecting bias and therefore are offended by writing that is supposed to be “objective.” Therefore, we decided to focus on the issue #2: objectivity as a false veil that journalists report behind. We wanted to come up with a platform that allows journalists to write in their own voices, making readers feel more connected, as well as dethrone the decree that journalists and stories must be objective.

Therefore, we came up with the problem statement: How do we demystify the enshrined illusion of objectivity in the news media?

After establishing the problem, we needed to think of a solution — one that combated the fundamental nature of journalism.

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.”

Chris Farone, editor of DigBoston: pointed out when he talked to the class that the idea of “objectivity” is a falsehood.

Alexandra Bell’s video on “Rewriting Racist Headlines”: shows 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.

Nieman Reports article “Where Does Journalism End and Activism Begin”: 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.”

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.”

In a Times article titled “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). For example, French thinker Louis 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, if the whole occupation of journalism is defined by its focus on objectivity — something that does not truly exist — there is a problem. This is exactly what we are seeing in the news media climate of today. There is a rise of media distrust in which politicians and news consumers deem issues that they don’t agree with as “fake news” or “biased,” and ultimately not in line with “objective” journalistic writing. As previously established, everything is biased and all ideas and language have an inherent leaning. Therefore, without changing the faulty relationship between “journalism” and “objectivity,” one cannot tackle such issues of distrust.

We believe that journalistic discourse needs to be re-imagined: focusing less on “objectivity,” and more on transparency. Transparency is powerful in that it takes away the idea that journalists are non-human objective robots.

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

We have designed a journalistic platform called “Human-Eyes.” The name of the platform is a word play on “humanize,” where we combine the word and “eyes” — attempting to humanize the journalist (rather than have journalists embody the ‘objective robot’ impossible role), where they write “through their eyes.” On this platform, journalists will 1) report using a first person narrative perspective, 2) every article published will include a link to an in-depth bio/profile of the journalists, 3) the “About Us” section will feature a disclaimer and will also explain our vision, and 4) news consumers will have the ability to openly comment their point of views (as long as it is constructive). Next, let us explain each of these elements in depth.

1. Journalists writing from a first person perspective

In an attempt to be completely transparent, Journalists will be asked to write using the following statements: I think, I saw, I believe, in my opinion, etc. The first person perspective leaves no room for obscurity, making the journalist fully responsible for their reporting. We also completely reject 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. An in-depth, self written, reviewed bio for 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 an “About The Journalist” page.

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, the Nieman Reports article writes how “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,” as 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 actually being affected by issues or has an opinion on the issue and therefore cannot be truly objective is combated.

3. An “About Us” section

One concern that we have is that because the audience may not understand our vision going in, as a result of the “non-objective” reporting they could either deem our reporting “unreliable” or 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 Us” section, a pop-up of the section 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 is losing because of the illusion of objectivity and distrust. Therefore, our 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.

Definition of “hateful” comments: comments that have no constructive value and/or include derogatory terminology, and/or personally attack the writer and/or other commenters.

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. 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 have is more constructive than trying to force the impossible idealized notion of objective writing that “reflects both sides.”

Audience

Our platform will be used by journalists who want to write in their own voice in a nontraditional way, and for an audience of readers who are looking to be more connected both their articles and journalists behind them.

Outtakes

Our journey to create Human-Eyes took a lot of thinking. We jumped from idea to idea from news deserts and underrepresented areas to a journalistic United Nations that would hopefully solve the problem of representation and false information in news media. However, we were thinking too big. Soon we learned that the problems in the news that we wanted to address couldn’t be fixed or manufactured easily, so we tried to find the root of the problem which is a blind belief in objectivity when really no such thing exists. We turned to social media and ask our followers if they felt news sources were objective. The majority of the feedback said no. Since there is no such thing as objectivity in the news because merely choosing what information to share with the public places personal bias behind stories, we asked ourselves if there was a way to debunk the idea that all news should be objective. Our ideas included giving journalists a profile page, adding more interesting narrative writing to stories, and allowing journalists to pitch their own stories and own angles on required topics.

Including a personal profile of the journalists’ backgrounds gives the reader a sense of transparency. Not only will the reader know where the journalist is coming from a political, social, and personal background, but also the reader may be more inclined to read a particular journalist’s reports. A biography section allows the readers to build a personal connection with the writer who in turn becomes a person rather than an article.

We decided that many articles are formatted and written very robotically and methodically in an attempt to avoid any semblance of bias. We think journalists should be more creative. Writing with a narrative style will engage the readers more and will allow the writer to express their opinion in the writing in an analytic way instead of mere fact stating.

By encouraging journalists to pitch their own stories versus being assigned to them, the

reporter will feel more connected with their topic. This also allows for better representation of different communities because the ideas are coming from journalist instead of a corporation that has to cover certain topics. Additionally, the reader will likely be more interested in a story that is written by an enthusiastic journalist.

Ultimately we choose to combine the idea that journalists will write transparently with the idea of a personal biography on the writers because they go hand in hand. We created a 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.