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November 27, 2007
Nothing Like Clarity...Sort Of
As I mentioned earlier, I'm working on a chapter about bias in communication for a book--an edited collection--to be published next year. I am in the literature review process of writing this thing. So my head is swimming with all kinds of data and theories that I need to come to terms with.
This thought occurred to me (again): "Just the facts" versus "journalistic interpretation" is a false dichotomy, yet that is the choice journalists often present (or is presented to them) regarding the job they ought to be doing. Some say the job is one; some say it's the other. Do/should journalists just report the facts or do/should journalists also tell us what the facts (and the news) mean?
Here's the problem: Whatinthehellis "just the facts"? How can you possibly have a fact without first having an interested person look at/for the fact? How can you say anything about the fact without the resulting statement being interpretive (e.g. you had to look for the fact, choose it from among others, and then present it in an expression of some kind)?
For your review, here's what I've written about information theory regarding facts in journalism. And here's a bit on the facts-values dichotomy.
Posted by acline at November 27, 2007 8:45 AM | | Spotlight