Racial protests prompt waves of upheaval in America鈥檚 newsrooms
In 2017, the syndicated radio show Marketplace fired a reporter for violating a tenet of the profession: neutrality.聽
Journalist Lewis Wallace had written a personal about the role of the Fourth Estate during the Donald Trump era titled 鈥淥bjectivity is dead, and I鈥檓 okay with it.鈥� He also strongly implied that the president is affiliated with white supremacists.
鈥淭he argument that I was making at that time was essentially that this idea of objective journalism is no longer shaping up,鈥� says the transgender millennial, who was dismissed for expressing a political opinion by a media outlet keen to avoid perceptions of bias. 鈥淲e need to, as journalists, be clear about and embrace our values, which in my view should include anti-racism.鈥澛�
Why We Wrote This
A highly charged debate over advocating for racial justice and what that means for the long-standing journalistic goal of neutrality is likely to shape the future of 21st-century media.
Mr. Wallace now appears to have been just a few years ahead of his time. In the wake of this month鈥檚 Black Lives Matter protests, newsrooms across the country are being challenged by mostly younger journalists to not only聽diversify their staffs but also to聽drop 鈥渂oth sides鈥� journalism in favor of more activist stances which they believe provide moral clarity. They鈥檙e questioning restrictions against joining political protests and posting opinions on social media. And they鈥檝e agitated to oust veteran colleagues who鈥檝e published controversial opinion pieces.
The push for social justice advocacy isn鈥檛 just happening at media outlets such as The New York Times. Generation Z and millennial employees are urging similar stances within tech companies, big corporations, book publishers, and arts organizations. Such calls for a moral North Star have often been accompanied by a drive to shift the range of 鈥渁cceptable鈥� opinions within organizations. That鈥檚 raising questions within newsrooms about whether such curbs on speech are compatible with the search for truth and engendering public trust in the press. It鈥檚 a debate that is likely to shape the future of 21st-century journalism.
鈥淥ne of the factors here, frankly, is that newsrooms have kind of developed a culture of their own,鈥� says Jeffrey McCall, a professor of media studies at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. 鈥淭he culture is not necessarily that we are providing information for an electorate so that self-governing citizens can make their own decisions 鈥� but that, in fact, we are creating news organizations that are designed to influence public opinion.鈥�
Others argue that the media鈥檚 long-standing tradition of presenting a balance of voices creates a problematic impression of moral equivalence.聽
鈥淎merican view-from-nowhere, 鈥榦bjectivity鈥�-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment,鈥� 聽former Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize who was arrested while covering the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri.聽
Some contend that the tumult across America this month underscores the importance of staking out racial justice principles.聽They believe it鈥檚 not just opinion pages that need to be reformed, but news reporting, too.聽
Mr. Wallace, the former Marketplace employee, recently published a book that argues the journalistic tradition of 鈥渙bjectivity鈥� has historically given newspapers cover to repress and sideline muckrakers such as Ida B. Wells, the Black investigative reporter who documented America鈥檚 sordid history of lynchings during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.聽
鈥淭here鈥檚 this long tradition in the Black press of journalism as resistance, journalism as activism,鈥� says Mr. Wallace, author of 鈥淭he View From Somewhere.鈥� 鈥淚t took activism and advocacy on the part of Black journalists, but also Black activists using the means of journalism 鈥� using Twitter, using live video footage, using Instagram, you know, documenting it 鈥� to get the mainstream media to report the truth about police violence in the United States.鈥�
Newsroom revolts
Since the protests began, employees at numerous news organizations have staked out activist positions. The staff of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are currently engaged in a stand-off with executive editor Keith Burris (who has written opinion pieces in support of President Donald Trump). After Mr. Burris barred a Black reporter from covering the protests because of a tweet that he believed revealed bias, a huge contingent of the newsroom rose up to support her. They, too, were then barred from reporting on the protests.聽聽
The top editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer recently exited the paper following a furor over a piece by the staff architecture critic with the headline: 鈥淏uildings Matter, too.鈥� At The Intercept, colleagues of writer Lee Fang exacted an apology from the journalist for posting a with a Black man who asked, 鈥淲hy does a Black life matter only when a white man takes it?鈥澛犅�
The staff revolt that has garnered the most attention is at The New York Times. Outrage erupted over a in which Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas proposed the use of military force to quell rioting. Many Times staffers claimed that Senator Cotton鈥檚 proposal, if enacted, would put Black journalists in harm鈥檚 way. Further objections asserted that the piece included factual inaccuracies. Within days, opinion section editor James Bennet resigned.聽
Amid the fallout, New York Times columnist Bari Weiss that the newspaper was split into two camps. 鈥淭he New York Times motto is 鈥榓ll the news that鈥檚 fit to print,鈥欌�� tweeted Ms. Weiss. 鈥淥ne group emphasizes the word 鈥榓ll.鈥� The other, the word 鈥榝it.鈥欌��
The columnist blamed a culture of 鈥渟afetyism鈥� among more recent college graduates. Other staffers took issue with her analysis, with her tweets themselves generating harsh pushback.
鈥淚t is an expansion of some of the mentalities on college campuses ... looking at controversial or unwanted speech as a form of violence or being harmful,鈥� says Donald Downs, author of 鈥淔ree Speech and Liberal Education.鈥� It also reflects a change in the politics of the left, says Mr. Downs, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The 鈥渨oke鈥� wing has moved away from the classic New Deal liberalism exemplified by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who famously declared that the remedy for falsehood and fallacies is more speech, not enforced silence.
In recent years, there have been foreshadowings of the current upheavals in newsrooms. After initially booking former Trump adviser Steve Bannon for a live interview at The New Yorker Festival,聽editor David Remnick quickly backtracked following an outcry from his staff. Similarly, The Atlantic fired conservative writer Kevin Williamson just days after hiring him, because the magazine鈥檚 rank-and-file objected to one of his earlier controversial statements on abortion.
鈥淚 think Thackeray had it about right in 鈥榁anity Fair鈥�: 鈥極ne of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object,鈥欌�� Mr. Williamson says in an email. 鈥淣obody seriously believes that James Bennet has it in for black people or that Tom Cotton is a fascist, but if you can lie to yourself successfully enough, then you believe that everybody who disagrees with you is the moral equivalent of Adolf Hitler, which makes practically everything permissible: lies, the suppression of speech, the weaponization of employment for enforcing conformity.鈥�
The often contrarian opinion columnist Meghan Daum wonders whether she鈥檇 make it into the nation鈥檚 biggest publications if she were just starting out today. Though the former Los Angeles Times columnist disagreed with Senator Cotton鈥檚 proposal to send in the troops, she frets that if a sitting senator becomes persona non grata on an opinion page, then readers who already have low trust in the media may simply leave and never come back.聽
鈥淚f there鈥檚 a North Star for commentary, it really should be presenting views that are diverse and intellectually credible, that are offering something new,鈥� says Ms. Daum, author of 鈥淭he Problem With Everything.鈥�
鈥淲ith a lot of these columnists, it鈥檚 like there鈥檚 an unwillingness to surprise their own audience 鈥� almost a fear of doing so. I mean, I鈥檝e seen columnists go on Twitter and tell people, don鈥檛 bother reading such-and-such. Don鈥檛 bother reading this article. And I want to say, 鈥榃hy are you in the business?鈥� she says.聽鈥淲hat purpose is served in telling people to not read something?鈥澛�
A reckoning
Many newsrooms have been undergoing a kind of reckoning of late, as the racial protests have shined a bright light on their own workplaces as highly elite 鈥� and still mostly white 鈥� organizations.
For John Watson, who worked for 21 years at the Jersey Journal as its first Black reporter, diversity in the newsroom isn鈥檛 a matter of ticking boxes, it鈥檚 a matter of professional importance. If the newsroom isn鈥檛 properly representative, a portion of humanity鈥檚 issues may not make it into the news, he says. Minority reporters will spot stories that others will miss. Case in point: When Mr. Watson was city editor in the early 1980s, he received a regular FBI crime report, including for the newspaper鈥檚 county. But when he looked at the homicide count, he grew suspicious.
鈥淚 thought it was off by 10 or 12,鈥� says Mr. Watson, now a professor at American University鈥檚 journalism school, where he specializes in media law and journalism ethics. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 count homicides by police, only civilians. ... It really hit me. Wow, the right people weren鈥檛 there to say, 鈥楲ook at these killings. They aren鈥檛 being reported. There鈥檚 a significant number of killings not in the uniform crime report.鈥欌��
海角大神 hosted an internal town hall meeting in which staff raised questions about the newspaper鈥檚 lack of Black staff reporters and its guidelines that forbid public expressions of opinion.
鈥淭he question is, how we can take the best of this new thinking to expand and strengthen our work,鈥� says Mark Sappenfield, editor of the Monitor. 鈥淭his can be a moment to build and do better.鈥�
Some argue that, as newspapers work to hire journalists from more diverse backgrounds in an effort to better understand those communities, it makes little sense to then effectively muzzle those writers鈥� points of view.聽
At the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, professors Jeff Jarvis and Carrie Brown recently launched a degree in social journalism. The idea is to develop a relationship with self-identified communities and then figure out how best to serve them as journalists. But Mr. Jarvis admits, the question of what the proper distance is between journalists and their subjects doesn鈥檛 have an easy answer 鈥� as he discovered while talking to his class right after the 2016 election.
鈥淲e talked about empathy. And African American students in particular in that class said, 鈥楴o. If you鈥檙e asking me to be empathetic to these people who鈥檝e never been empathetic to me and mine, no,鈥欌�� recalls Mr. Jarvis, a renowned media analyst and creator of Entertainment Weekly. 鈥淚 said that as a human being, I understand and agree. As a citizen, I understand and agree. As a journalist, however, you have the need to attempt to understand even those people.鈥�
Those who champion the elusive ideal of objectivity, or at least fairness, contend that citizens seldom agree on what constitutes morality. For example, feminists of different stripes may broadly agree on the need to advance the interests of women, yet disagree on how best to do so.
DePauw鈥檚 Mr. McCall says mainstream media outlets should first strive to fulfill the democratic function of providing information in as detailed and fair a way as possible. Then, second, offer clearly labeled analysis or interpretation of the news.聽
For all the disagreements, journalists on both sides of the debate can still find common agreement around certain principles: serving communities, watching out for the little guy, holding the powerful to account, and being fully transparent.聽
The journalistic value that Mr. Wallace prizes above all is curiosity.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a funny way in which objectivity and impartiality actually foreclose curiosity,鈥� he says. 鈥淲hat that often ends up doing is restricting or limiting the debate to 鈥榣eft鈥� versus 鈥榬ight.鈥� Or the parties who are already assumed to have a stake. I think curiosity can be quite radical and can blow up an idea of what reality and what voices might need to be included.鈥澛�
Note: This piece was updated to correct the title of the uniform crime report. We regret the error.
