Tuesday 13 November 2007

Non-neutrality **is** objective

What a fantastic cartoon in The Herald on the Clark Government's democracy rationing, following up yesterday's front page effort!


The Herald has drawn criticism for not being "neutral" in taking against Clark's democracy rationing.. But objective journalism does not mean neutrality. The premise here is that if you have a point of view, then you can't be objective. But as Paul Blair explains, "that's just plain false."
An objective report gives the audience all the information needed to draw a valid conclusion... But facts lead to conclusions. Just because one doesn't want to accept those conclusions doesn't make the facts wrong or the presentation nonobjective: rather, the person who resists the logical conclusion is the one who lacks objectivity... Being objective means recognizing that not everybody's point of view is equally valid or deserves equal respect.
Over to you, critics.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

TRN's 4.30pm news has just announced Annette King suggesting "big changes" are on the cards. Well, what a surprise.

It's now even more imperative to echo the "drowned, not watered down" message.

Anonymous said...

What a superb cartoon. I wonder if the Left rank and file are 'getting it' yet?

Mark Hubbard