None of Your Opinion Shows Up in Your Stories? Responding to Chance the Rapper on Bias in Journalism
When Chance the Rapper walked into a conference session at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention last month in Detroit, he brought his entourage and a throng of adoring fans in tow.
Almost everybody was caught off guard, including the musician himself. “I’m sorry,” the newly minted publisher of Chicagoist apologized. “I just came to learn,” he said.
The thing that stood out wasn’t the surprise appearance by a celebrity and his admirers among hard-nosed journalists — after all, NABJ has long been a magnet for major star power — it was the question Chance asked.
“So,” said Chance after raising his hand in the session on solutions journalism, “You’re saying none of your opinion, none, shows up in your stories?”
“No,” responded one journalist. “Not mine. My opinion has no place in any of the stories that we publish.”
The question highlights a persistent gap between journalists and the public and presents a key challenge for a new publisher of a trusted local news source who has no journalism experience. As Chance embarks on his new career as a publisher he’ll have to navigate how Chicagoist will confront or conform to traditional journalistic standards like this. Chance’s question was an earnest one, and a valid one, highlighting real concerns about bias in the work journalists do.
Does bias play into our reporting? If we are to be honest, we’d say, Chance and other media consumers are owed a more nuanced, complex and honest response than the one he was given. Journalists work very hard to keep their own views out of the stories we produce. In fact, we have codes of ethics to help us in this endeavor. Responsible journalists rely on these standard codes of conduct to mitigate our own biases.
Unfortunately, bias still sometimes shows up in our work. Sometimes it shows itself through the stories we decide to cover, and those we don’t. It shows itself in who we choose to interview and quote in our stories, and who we don’t. Bias even reveals itself through the words we choose to use to describe situations and/or sources, and words we don’t use. It’s called unconscious or implicit bias, and all of us — not just journalists — suffer from it.
In a 2013 article in the Boston Globe, Carolyn Johnson describes Harvard research that shows “everyone carries with them implicit biases that may change how people perceive or interact with others.” Psychologists began studying this phenomenon in the 1980s, and it is still transforming U.S. industries, including journalism and law enforcement. Doctors, judges, police, journalists, and teachers are are all subject to these biases, which can lead people to inadvertently act in ways that may be discriminatory or influenced by stereotypes that people would consciously reject, according to the Globe’s report.
We may seek to ensure our opinions don’t show up in our journalism, but we should also acknowledge our blind spots and how those shape our reporting.
We may seek to ensure our opinions don’t show up in our journalism, but we should also acknowledge our blind spots and how those shape our reporting. Any discussion with news consumers about how journalists’ work should include this insight, along with an emphasis on how journalism codes of ethics work as a check on these biases. And Chance himself could be a powerful spokesperson, elevating these questions and shining a spotlight on how journalism works, or should work. The fact that Chance, real name Chancellor Johnathan Bennett, was in attendance at an NABJ conference to learn more about journalism is refreshing. It’s a sign that he may be taking his new role seriously. With followers and fans in the millions, Chance the Publisher has a built-in, enviable audience. An audience, dare I say, the old Chicagoist never had.
Chance is also an activist, philanthropist, and a trusted voice in and outside of Chicago. As a publisher now, he’s going to have to find his voice in a different way, and ensure the independence of Chicagoist reporters. As he navigates these various roles, he’ll do well to keep learning from journalists and their code of ethics. The same kinds of folks who were already sitting in the room at the NABJ Conference when he walked in.
Tracie Powell is a Senior Fellow with Democracy Fund and founder of AllDigitocracy.org.
