Thursday, November 06, 2008
Editorial: Time to change reporting: Lose the bias and renew objectivity
The long presidential campaign came to an end Tuesday. Now it’s time for the media to return to business as usual: reporting on news other than the election.
It’s time to move on to reporting on the new president, good and bad. For many newspapers, however, this means reporting on a president they did not endorse as a candidate.
The media continue their claim of unbiased and objective reporting, yet they were busy calling the winners of debates and endorsing candidates.
It’s the job of the people, not newspapers and television stations, to decide the winners.
In the last month, much of the campaigns’ coverage centered around which candidate had more newspaper endorsements. It became a new meter for who was in the lead.
Newspapers claim these endorsements don’t contain political bias and the decisions are made based on what is best for the community they serve. Some of the endorsements, however, differed from the way in which the communities voted.
The editorial staff makes the decisions on whom they will endorse. The editorial staff is made up of, yes, editors. They are the people who make news decisions for the rest of the content of the paper.
The Advocate did not endorse a candidate because we believe it is not a role the media should play.
Instead, we chose columnists to write differing opinions on the candidates throughout the election, but the key was that there were differing points of view. The columnists also do not take part in news selection for the paper, creating a separation of news and opinion.
The Advocate staff, like much of the country, is divided ideologically. This divide needs to be reflected in news coverage.
It’s questionable whether or not readers can trust editors to make unbiased news judgments when they’ve endorsed a particular candidate.
Newspapers are intended to be the trusted reporter of the facts to the people. The community is supposed to make the decision about who is best for them.
With this in mind, we encourage you to tell us what you think, rather than the other way around.