Trump Is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism

One of the main goals all journalists should have is to remain objective. Objectivity is achieved by putting all personal biases aside and only reporting the facts when writing. To me, I believe that this is the only way to ethically report news and should be considered “the norm”, even though creating an article free of all personal opinions can be a very hard goal to achieve. If journalists were able to create content loaded with bias, it would be hard to tell what’s fact and what’s embellishment. If a journalist feels as if they need to report on their own opinion, it is only fair that they report on the other side of the story and talk about the opinions of the opposing side. Objectivity matters to me personally for two reasons. One, because professors look for objectivity in papers. Two, because I want information that isn’t slanted when I read news articles.

The article we read this week is titled Trump Is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism. This article discussed how the coverage of Donald Trump in the news is not adhering to the normal standards of objectivity. Many journalists find it hard to stay objective when reporting on Trump since he’s viewed as an unreliable and possibly dangerous candidate. As Scarborough, host of the show “Morning Joe”, said in regards to reporting on Trump, “How balanced do you have to be when one side is just irrational?” Due to comments like this, supporters of Trump believe that he is being bullied in the world of media. Washing Post managing editor Cameron Barr responded to such backlash by saying, “When controversy is being stoked, it’s our obligation to report that. If one candidate is doing that more aggressively and consistently than the other, that is an imbalance for sure. It’s not one that we create, it’s one that the candidate is creating.” I support Barr’s statement because I don’t think that journalists are failing at being objective when they report on one candidate more than another, but simply reporting more on what is considered newsworthy.

I believe that issues such as Trump’s so called bad media coverage are hard to overcome. It appears as if journalists are constantly harassing Trump since he hasn’t received good press, but it’s also an issue of Trump constantly saying controversial things. Although it can be hard to please everyone, I believe that it is the duty of journalists to continue to report on issues as objectively as possible.

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