Jun. 29th, 2007 01:54 pm
Domestications and journalistic ethics
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
textualdevianceThese last two weeks of freedom have been sweet, albeit not without some annoyances. The amount of work that the house needs is really quite overwhelming, though I'm making dents in it. I've been a little sick on and off because I re-started my meds, and my tummy doesn't like those early on, so I've been a little slower on the mucking around than I'd hoped. Still, there has been progress.
I've also been slowly ramping up on the socialization thing. Can't wait for the party--two weeks out!
I have a few resumes out for specific jobs. There are two I'd really like, though I haven't heard back on either, and one that I'll take if I can't find anything else worth my time. It's not really journalism and it's full time, but it's contract and I suspect it pays damned well. I may just do it for a while to get the bills paid off. Still, I'm tempted to just wait it out until something really good does come along. Basically, unless I get a job offer that pays a ton and/or has something to do with actual journalism, I really don't want to bother. Especially if I'm working full time, I don't want to put in all those hours without getting something back--either career satisfaction or an assload of money. I won't get out of bed for less than $20/hour unless I'm actually working in news media.
I'm also running into potential career dilemmas with some of these jobs. I've been getting bites on my Monster/CareerBuilder resumes for jobs doing company sites and such. Definitely stuff I'm qualified for, but it does kind of fall into marketing/PR, and that's really not where I want to be. I'd have a hard time breaking into serious news with that kind of background, because my objectivity would always be in question. Of course, I'm always going to have some of that because of where M works--I'll never be able to write about software industry news--but having one's spouse working at a major company is different than working in a marketing capacity oneself.
If all I wanted to do was freelance fluff pieces for magazines, I could get away with just about any kind of job. But I did this degree because I have a passion for journalism, not just writing, and I don't want to do anything that might hinder my potential career track in that.
Which also leads me to an unfortunate thing that happened this week: a bunch of journalists got busted for contributing to political campaigns.
Given how much of a hardass I am on ethics, this may seem odd, but I'm actually against this, for the reason Cohen gives: unless we're going to prevent journalists from going to church or volunteering at their kids' schools--both of which are heavily politically loaded--there's no reason we should stop them from other sorts of political activity. I would draw the line at actually working for a political campaign--that smacks of being paid off to write good things about one's other employer--but I don't see how having a campaign sign on one's lawn is a big deal unless one is actually covering the election.
The reason this bugs me so much is that it leads to a notion that fairness requires complete objectivity. The concept that the best journalism comes from journalists who are merely dispassionate recorders of events is anathema to actual real journalism. Any idiot can write a play-by-play of an event; real journalists find out what the event really means. And that being the case, reporting actual facts and the whys behind the news will necessarily require that our articles be biased--toward the truth. And if that's OK, then why is it not OK for the journalists themselves to be biased that direction?
Truly objective people don't exist. Everyone has some biases. The notion that just because a given reporter doesn't donate to political campaigns or march in the occasional civil rights rally that means he or she is entirely free of bias is wrong. And, IMNSHO, I think hiding our biases actually makes things worse. I would rather have a yearly fair disclosure statement from each media outlet as to what donations and volunteer activities each editorial staff member did than to not know that the guy writing about abortion rallies is a hardcore Catholic who donates to his kid's parochial school. If I'm going to be prevented from singing with SLGC because it's an organization specifically in favor of gay rights, then I want the guy next to me to be prevented from going to a church that specifically preaches that being gay is sinful.
Everything we do in life has some politics behind it. I choose to buy organic stuff much of the time. That's a political act. I chose to buy a car with good gas mileage. That's a political act. I choose to not eat mammals. That's a political act. Everything from what clothes we wear to where we choose to live is a political act. There's no way to divorce that from life because it IS life. Exempting religion or PTA activities when we don't exempt other political acts is bias in itself.
Unless there is direct quid pro quo going on, I think restricting the off-duty political activities of journalists is wrong. I will be ethical by choosing to not report on the industry in which my husband is employed, and I will not report on any election in which I have contributed to one side or the other, or in which I have a personal stake (any queer rights legislation, for instance.) But beyond that? My editors need to trust that I am a professional and that I will use my professional objective method to determine and write about the facts for a given story.
I've also been slowly ramping up on the socialization thing. Can't wait for the party--two weeks out!
I have a few resumes out for specific jobs. There are two I'd really like, though I haven't heard back on either, and one that I'll take if I can't find anything else worth my time. It's not really journalism and it's full time, but it's contract and I suspect it pays damned well. I may just do it for a while to get the bills paid off. Still, I'm tempted to just wait it out until something really good does come along. Basically, unless I get a job offer that pays a ton and/or has something to do with actual journalism, I really don't want to bother. Especially if I'm working full time, I don't want to put in all those hours without getting something back--either career satisfaction or an assload of money. I won't get out of bed for less than $20/hour unless I'm actually working in news media.
I'm also running into potential career dilemmas with some of these jobs. I've been getting bites on my Monster/CareerBuilder resumes for jobs doing company sites and such. Definitely stuff I'm qualified for, but it does kind of fall into marketing/PR, and that's really not where I want to be. I'd have a hard time breaking into serious news with that kind of background, because my objectivity would always be in question. Of course, I'm always going to have some of that because of where M works--I'll never be able to write about software industry news--but having one's spouse working at a major company is different than working in a marketing capacity oneself.
If all I wanted to do was freelance fluff pieces for magazines, I could get away with just about any kind of job. But I did this degree because I have a passion for journalism, not just writing, and I don't want to do anything that might hinder my potential career track in that.
Which also leads me to an unfortunate thing that happened this week: a bunch of journalists got busted for contributing to political campaigns.
Given how much of a hardass I am on ethics, this may seem odd, but I'm actually against this, for the reason Cohen gives: unless we're going to prevent journalists from going to church or volunteering at their kids' schools--both of which are heavily politically loaded--there's no reason we should stop them from other sorts of political activity. I would draw the line at actually working for a political campaign--that smacks of being paid off to write good things about one's other employer--but I don't see how having a campaign sign on one's lawn is a big deal unless one is actually covering the election.
The reason this bugs me so much is that it leads to a notion that fairness requires complete objectivity. The concept that the best journalism comes from journalists who are merely dispassionate recorders of events is anathema to actual real journalism. Any idiot can write a play-by-play of an event; real journalists find out what the event really means. And that being the case, reporting actual facts and the whys behind the news will necessarily require that our articles be biased--toward the truth. And if that's OK, then why is it not OK for the journalists themselves to be biased that direction?
Truly objective people don't exist. Everyone has some biases. The notion that just because a given reporter doesn't donate to political campaigns or march in the occasional civil rights rally that means he or she is entirely free of bias is wrong. And, IMNSHO, I think hiding our biases actually makes things worse. I would rather have a yearly fair disclosure statement from each media outlet as to what donations and volunteer activities each editorial staff member did than to not know that the guy writing about abortion rallies is a hardcore Catholic who donates to his kid's parochial school. If I'm going to be prevented from singing with SLGC because it's an organization specifically in favor of gay rights, then I want the guy next to me to be prevented from going to a church that specifically preaches that being gay is sinful.
Everything we do in life has some politics behind it. I choose to buy organic stuff much of the time. That's a political act. I chose to buy a car with good gas mileage. That's a political act. I choose to not eat mammals. That's a political act. Everything from what clothes we wear to where we choose to live is a political act. There's no way to divorce that from life because it IS life. Exempting religion or PTA activities when we don't exempt other political acts is bias in itself.
Unless there is direct quid pro quo going on, I think restricting the off-duty political activities of journalists is wrong. I will be ethical by choosing to not report on the industry in which my husband is employed, and I will not report on any election in which I have contributed to one side or the other, or in which I have a personal stake (any queer rights legislation, for instance.) But beyond that? My editors need to trust that I am a professional and that I will use my professional objective method to determine and write about the facts for a given story.
Tags: