Just the facts : how "objectivity" came to define American journalism
David T. Z. Mindich (Author)
If American journalism were a religion, as it has been called, then its supreme deity would be "objectivity." The high priests of the profession worship the concept, while the iconoclasts of advocacy journalism, new journalism, and cyberjournalism consider objectivity a golden calf. Meanwhile, a groundswell of tabloids and talk shows and the increasing infringement of market concerns make a renewed discussion of the validity, possibility, and aim of objectivity a crucial pursuit. David T.Z. Mindich reaches back to the nineteenth century to recover the lost history and meaning of this central tenet of American journalism. His book draws on high profile cases, showing the degree to which journalism and its evolving commitment to objectivity altered and in some cases limited the public's understanding of events and issues
x, 200 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780814756140, 9780814756133, 081475614X, 0814756131
38898032
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Objectivity
Detachment: The caning of James Gordon Bennett, the Penny Press, and objectivitiy's primordial soup
Nonpartisanship: Three shades of political journalism
The inverted pyramid: Edwin M. Stanton and information control
Facticity: Science, culture, cholera, and the rise of journalism's "native empiricism," 1832-66
Balance: A "slanderous and nasty-minded mulatress," Ida B. Wells, confronts "objectivity in the 1890s
Conclusion: Thoughts on a post-"objective" profession