Local Opinion: Our naivete about objectivity is dangerous

One of the most dangerous features of this troubled moment in our history is our massive confusion about the truth and our relationship to it. And a major contributor to that confusion is that much-honored concept: “objectivity.”

We tend to think of the concept of objectivity as fighting the good fight against “fake news,” that dangerous concept inserted into the national consciousness by Trump which has done so much damage to the reputation of journalism. But actually, by suggesting that there exists, accessible to us all, a disinterested, godlike version of the truth, “objectivity” enables “fake news.”

A recent letter to the editor of this paper complains about this “post-truth” era when, with Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the left, there are “no unbiased news sources anymore.” As if there was a golden age of truthful, objective reporting we’ve lamentably left behind.

Such a golden age of journalistic objectivity never existed. When slavery was the law of the land, journalism often reflected racist, pro-slavery bias. During World War II our most trusted newspapers didn’t feel the need to present a balanced view of Nazis and the Allies. (We trusted them, as we did God, to be on the right side.)

Polls show trust in news sources at historic lows. Has journalism actually changed? Has it for some reason suddenly lost its hold on, or even its interest in, the truth?

Something else seems to be going on.

It’s not as if hucksters trying to sell you snake oil for what ails you, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or politicians pitching pie-in-the-sky are a new thing. In a free speech society there’s a soapbox in every town square, and people availing themselves of them to persuade you this way or that.

At least for those of a certain age, a big part of growing up American was coping with this chaos of variously motivated opinion. Hence the cautionary slogans: “Don’t believe everything you hear (or read) and only half of what you see.” “There’s one born every minute” (that sucker P. T. Barnum was actually celebrated for exploiting.)

It was clearly up to the consumer to avoid being sold the Brooklyn Bridge; there will always be those trying to sell it to you. There will always be wooden nickels, up to you to keep from getting stuck with one.

In the “marketplace of ideas,” Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. The facts don’t speak for themselves. Consider the source. Distinguish between bias and opinion. Between demonstrable lies and opinions you don’t agree with.

Schools (still, I hope) talk about their goal being to teach “critical thinking” to equip the student for that marketplace.

You can’t know for sure whether the election was stolen. But you have a choice: between the loser’s hunch that he won the election in a landslide and the results as actually counted by duly appointed bipartisan counters.

No one has direct access to the truth. Everybody has a relationship to it.

So, what’s my relationship here, in this op-ed, to the truth? A Chicago Tribune columnist in a piece several months ago suggested, in defending newspapers against the charge of liberal bias, that the paper has a strict code requiring of its writers strict objectivity in news stories and even in opinion columns like hers. That sort of naïvete, all too common among newspapers, is part of the problem. I make no such claim here.

“Objective” is not the word I’d use for what you are reading. Clearly, I have a dog in this fight, as the saying goes. I think the world, including both newspapers and their readers, would be better off without both concepts, “objectivity” and “fake news.” My hope is that the writing itself will make it clear to readers that though I have no insider access to the truth, I’m doing my best to get at the reality of a difficult and very important subject. I am not lying; I have, as far as I am aware, no ulterior motive.

Democracy is threatened by demagogues, braggarts and liars. It is also threatened by gullible citizens.