“Facts are the centre. Facts. We don’t pretend that certain facts are in dispute to give the appearance of fairness to people who don’t believe them. Balance is irrelevant to me. It doesn’t have anything to do with truth, logic or reality.”
It was no practising journalist who said this but the creator of American TV series The Newsroom who put it on the lips of Charlie Skinner, director of news division of the fictional Atlantis Cable News (ACN) channel.
A friend gave me a copy of the series, which I started to watch recently. It is an education in good television drama as well as an excellent exposé of different journalistic models in action and in competition. The series is intriguing and enlightening. I think that this quote from the series is a very appropriate comment on the controversy created by Jon Snow’s reportage of the conflict in Gaza, about which I wrote last Sunday.
Since I harbour no illusion that people would still remember what I wrote last week, let me paraphrase and take the argument a step forward by drawing some conclusions about the local journalistic culture.
Snow, the Channel 4 journalist, went on assignment to Gaza. He was horrified by what he saw and wanted to communicate this horror and his take on it to his audiences. He is the face of Channel 4 news, so his opinion will surely be appreciated by millions. Instead, he posted his commentary on You Tube. Three quarters of a million watched it. The total number of viewers is greater as the video went viral. Let me repeat the same warning as last Sunday: you will not be able to get the images out of your mind.
Channel 4 could not broadcast it, as journalists working with broadcasting stations in Britain are expected not only to be accurate but to be balanced and to show due impartiality. Print and internet journalists have no legal obligation to be either. The same legal regime prevails in Malta and in other countries.
Snow was praised by many and criticised by many others.
Opponents were mainly those who believe in journalism as the profession which thrives on balance, objectively and impartially. Within this perspective, journalists should remain detached from the subject they report on, do not express an opinion or take a position and do not intervene directly in a story they cover.
Journalism emerged from within opinion-oriented organisations such as all sorts of political groupings, churches and trade unions. They had a point to make and they wanted to make it in the strongest possible manner using the most powerful medium at the time. Since the 1920s, objectivity and impartiality became part of the credo of the journalistic culture in the US and this model spread so much that it became dominant in many countries.
The stress on objectivity was seen as a solution to the emotionalism and chauvinism of the conservative American press. Besides, it was believed that if one is objective and gives different points of view, one could sell more.
The legal regime regulating broadcasting in Malta follows the main tenets of this model, particularly in the case of public service broadcasting. A different situation prevails in the sector of self-regulation.
The Code of Ethics of Maltese journalists, for example, does not refer to either impartiality or objectivity. As a matter of fact, the Society of Professional Journalists of the US dropped its reference to objectivity in the late 1990s.
Skinner, quoted in the first paragraph of this piece, would probably support Snow’s position that journalists have the right, nay duty, to take a position. A reportage stating that ‘A’ said ‘X’ and ‘B’ said the contrary is balanced but not necessarily accurate, fair or truthful. The trend called journalism of attachment believes in journalists taking positions. Martin Bell, the BBC correspondent who covered so many wars, is considered to be the father of the trend, while Bosnia is considered to be its birthplace.
Bell was born and bred in the objective/balanced model of journalism till he was seriously injured while on assignment in Bosnia. He then started to put forward the case that journalists, instead of being neutral, should record the human and emotional costs of war rather than reporting in such a way that they would be acting as ‘transmission vehicles’ for governmental or military sources.
The late photo-journalist Marie Colvin was a strong proponent of this journalistic culture. She took sides and this always was the side of the voiceless and the vulnerable. Colvin paid the ultimate price in the service of her vocation while covering the Syrian conflict.
The debate between both sides is never ending. Both sides accuse the others of, for example, debasing journalism.
It is unfortunate that such debates hardly ever take place in Maltese journalistic circles, as there is no structure which makes such debates possible. One of the reasons is that our journalism has hardly developed into an independent profession.
An ésprit de corps barely exists among journalists. During a journalistic trip to Moscow, I remember two Maltese journalists from different sides of the political divide coming to blows during a dinner hosted by a senior Russian government official.
Advocacy journalism has always been a major staple of local journalistic culture
It is ironic that the Institute of Maltese Journalists was founded years ago not as a result of a need felt by journalists but at the prodding of the owner of one of Malta’s largest public relations and advertising companies. While one should be appreciative of that initiative one should keep in mind that journalism and public relations/advertising form very strange and perverse bedfellows. They simply do not mix.
Advocacy journalism has always been a major staple of local journalistic culture. It has only been since the 1990s that this culture was seriously challenged by a different type of journalism. The commercialisation of the print media is one of the most important developments in Maltese journalism. The mix between the two cultures could be a very positive one if both types of journalists keep in mind that their first and foremost loyalty is towards the audience.
Serving audiences faithfully and assiduously takes more than just observing the parameters of the law. The observance of a vibrant Code of Ethics guarantees quality more than anything else. Journalists must work in this direction to avoid the enactment of the bizarre pre-election ideas mooted by the Prime Minister about having an Ethics Ombudsman within the Office of the Ombudsman or having the Broadcasting Authority regulating the press.
Happy would be the day when Maltese journalists, in Snow’s fashion, would post on You Tube pieces that their employing organisations refuse to cover as Will McAvoy, the anchor in The Newsroom, said: “We’ll be deciding what goes on our air and how it’s presented to you based on the simple truth that nothing is more important to a democracy than a well-informed electorate.”
Perhaps I am hoping for too much.
joseph.borg@um.edu.mt