Incidentally, folks tend to only jump on faux-objectivity when it's about electoral politics, but it's worth remembering that it infects all aspects of the media. Take, for instance, this (very good) new York Times review of two books on meat. In the first paragraph, we're told, "Raising and processing cattle on an industrial scale is an environmental catastrophe (among other things, the United Nations has accused the world’s livestock industry of being responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire global transportation fleet)." Emphasis mine. The UN didn't "accuse" the livestock industry of anything. They published research showing that livestock production is a more significant contributor to carbon emissions than transportation is. If the author has methodological problems with the research, he should say so. If he accepts the research, then he shouldn't suggest it's an accusation -- it's an empirical conclusion. And as far as I can tell from the review, the author does accept the research, and ends his essay by saying, "if we’re going to eat beef, we should restrict ourselves to meat raised for quality rather than quantity, in ways both humane to the animals and respectful of the environment. Such beef can be found and will probably taste better — but it will be more expensive and less democratic, an infrequent treat, perhaps even a luxury." The fact that "accuse" hangs out in the first paragraph is evidence not of his personal opposition to the point, but the degree to which the conventions of journalism have accepted that if people are paid to dispute true facts, then those facts should be softened to look more like the arguable claims of one interest group or another.Image used under a CC license from Flickr user Umpqua. OBJECTIVITY IN ALL THINGS.
Incidentally, folks tend to only jump on faux-objectivity when it's about electoral politics, but it's worth remembering that it infects all aspects of the media. Take, for instance, this (very good) new York Times review of two books on meat. In the first paragraph, we're told, "Raising and processing cattle on an industrial scale is an environmental catastrophe (among other things, the United Nations has accused the world’s livestock industry of being responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire global transportation fleet)." Emphasis mine. The UN didn't "accuse" the livestock industry of anything. They published research showing that livestock production is a more significant contributor to carbon emissions than transportation is. If the author has methodological problems with the research, he should say so. If he accepts the research, then he shouldn't suggest it's an accusation -- it's an empirical conclusion. And as far as I can tell from the review, the author does accept the research, and ends his essay by saying, "if we’re going to eat beef, we should restrict ourselves to meat raised for quality rather than quantity, in ways both humane to the animals and respectful of the environment. Such beef can be found and will probably taste better — but it will be more expensive and less democratic, an infrequent treat, perhaps even a luxury." The fact that "accuse" hangs out in the first paragraph is evidence not of his personal opposition to the point, but the degree to which the conventions of journalism have accepted that if people are paid to dispute true facts, then those facts should be softened to look more like the arguable claims of one interest group or another.Image used under a CC license from Flickr user Umpqua. 
