Should Journalists Be Politically Impartial?
24, February, 2007
Iman Kurdi, Arab News
Should a political journalist be like a psychoanalyst: Someone whose role is to guide, not impose, whose own views and emotions remain hidden behind a screen of impartiality and who infuriatingly always answers a question with a question? I can think of some journalists who fall into that category. If they write in the press, they produce pieces that are almost seamlessly put together, a sequence of facts and figures, quotes and citations, that let the subject do the talking. If they appear on television, they tend to be poker-faced or almost invisible, a head nodding along and a voice asking questions, seemingly neutral and unbiased. It can make fascinating viewing, particularly when they interview people with extreme views: Give them enough rope and they hang themselves.
But it often lacks spice. Not only can it end up being bland and uninteresting; it can also be misleading. The majority of politicians are players, they are the masters of propaganda to use an old-fashioned term. Give them airtime and they will spin a tantalizing web. We look to journalists to challenge what is being said. Of course this does not negate them from being independent and impartial, but it requires a hard skill: The ability to be combative yet neutral. Some do it better than others. In Europe, the British are rather good at producing journalists who can keep politicians on their toes, the French less so. French journalists are more polite, more compliant than their British counterparts: Politicians are treated as statesmen and given a certain degree of respect and deference. As for the Middle East, deference was the norm, until Al-Jazeerah came along.
Essentially, journalists are required to take part in a debate without taking sides. During election campaigns, journalists aim to be balanced, independent, neutral and impartial. But is that possible? Given that journalists are — on the whole — intelligent and informed, surely they have strong opinions, views that — presumably — they suppress in order to appear impartial. In other words, it is a lie. The journalist is not impartial; he or she only appears to be.
Would it not be more honest to wear your views? I ask the question in the context of the current French election campaign. Last week Alain Duhamel, a leading French political commentator, was suspended from the television station France 2 and from the radio station RTL because it was revealed that he supported Francois Bayrou, one of the presidential candidates. The manner and context of this revelation is noteworthy. Duhamel made the comment off the record last November, unaware that he was being recorded. He said that he supported Francois Bayrou’s stand on Europe and would likely vote for him. In other words, he spoke not in the context of presidential elections, but of European elections. More than three months later, the footage was put on the Internet and Duhamel was swiftly taken off the air. Just as two newsreaders, Marie Drucker and Beatrice Schoenberg, have been put on a leave of absence for the duration of the election campaign because their partners happen to be politicians. The assumption is that they are no longer impartial and consequently unfit to do their job.
I find the idea that any journalist is personally impartial absurd. I also find it somewhat ridiculous to believe that the public is blissfully unaware of a journalist’s place on the political spectrum. The more influential the journalist — and in France TV anchors are stars in their own right — the more will be known about the company they keep and the views they hold. But even without the gossip columns, just which paper a journalist writes for is often enough to label someone as to the left or to the right.
I also find it hypocritical to penalize individual journalists for appearing impartial when whole news networks are far from independent. In Britain, the outcome of the next general elections will be largely influenced by the views of one man: Rupert Murdoch. Should Murdoch choose to switch his support back to the Conservatives, his newspapers and TV stations will be anything but impartial. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi would not have attained political power had he not had his media empire at his beck and call. France may be lucky enough not to have a Rupert Murdoch or a Silvio Berlusconi dominating its media output but that does not make French media independent of political influence. For one thing the links between major media players and certain politicians are well known.
If anything part of the reason Alain Duhamel’s support for Francois Bayrou caused such a stir is that he is not supporting a candidate from the left or from the right but the so-called third man. Had he said he would vote for Nicholas Sarkozy (indeed Alain Duhamel was thought by some to be a Sarkoziste) chances are he would still be on air — at least this is Francois Bayrou’s contention. Media coverage of Bayrou’s campaign has been a contentious issue. A key component of his campaign has been a fight for the attention of the media. In fact he has regularly accused the media of setting up the election as a duel between Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, a duel that Sarkozy is expected to win according to the pollsters. Bayrou is positioning himself firmly in the center, though his political background is closer to the center-right. He is campaigning for a unity government and a move away from the bipolarization of politics. If Sarkozy should find himself in a run-off with Bayrou, the polls suggest Sarkozy would lose. For this to happen, Bayrou needs to come second in the first round of voting. The more the media portrays him as a viable contender the better his chances of making it to the second round.
What all this points to is the level of distrust that exists regarding the media. This is by no means a French phenomenon but a global one. This is largely due to media ownership rather than journalism per se. It is not impartiality that is the issue but independence. The general public increasingly distrusts the media because it believes that the agenda is set by the usual suspects of politics and big business. Newspapers and television stations are seeing some of their influence eroded as readers and viewers turn to sources they feel they can trust more than the mainstream media, sources like blogs and other Internet-based media. One of the aspects I find most interesting about this is that people are turning toward information sources that are partisan. What they trust is a commentator who is open about his or her allegiance, you could call it media transparency, something akin to politicians declaring their financial interests. Broadcasting regulators enforce strict rules to ensure that political parties are given due weight and that the playing field remains fair. Journalists have a duty to present a fair and balanced account of a political campaign. Being married to a politician or making voting intentions known does not disqualify a journalist from doing his job anymore than being a citizen who votes in a general election does. If anything, the more open journalists are about their political connections, the more likely they are to be trusted by the public. It is not a journalist who should be impartial but their reporting.
Iman Kurdi, Arab News
Should a political journalist be like a psychoanalyst: Someone whose role is to guide, not impose, whose own views and emotions remain hidden behind a screen of impartiality and who infuriatingly always answers a question with a question? I can think of some journalists who fall into that category. If they write in the press, they produce pieces that are almost seamlessly put together, a sequence of facts and figures, quotes and citations, that let the subject do the talking. If they appear on television, they tend to be poker-faced or almost invisible, a head nodding along and a voice asking questions, seemingly neutral and unbiased. It can make fascinating viewing, particularly when they interview people with extreme views: Give them enough rope and they hang themselves.
But it often lacks spice. Not only can it end up being bland and uninteresting; it can also be misleading. The majority of politicians are players, they are the masters of propaganda to use an old-fashioned term. Give them airtime and they will spin a tantalizing web. We look to journalists to challenge what is being said. Of course this does not negate them from being independent and impartial, but it requires a hard skill: The ability to be combative yet neutral. Some do it better than others. In Europe, the British are rather good at producing journalists who can keep politicians on their toes, the French less so. French journalists are more polite, more compliant than their British counterparts: Politicians are treated as statesmen and given a certain degree of respect and deference. As for the Middle East, deference was the norm, until Al-Jazeerah came along.
Essentially, journalists are required to take part in a debate without taking sides. During election campaigns, journalists aim to be balanced, independent, neutral and impartial. But is that possible? Given that journalists are — on the whole — intelligent and informed, surely they have strong opinions, views that — presumably — they suppress in order to appear impartial. In other words, it is a lie. The journalist is not impartial; he or she only appears to be.
Would it not be more honest to wear your views? I ask the question in the context of the current French election campaign. Last week Alain Duhamel, a leading French political commentator, was suspended from the television station France 2 and from the radio station RTL because it was revealed that he supported Francois Bayrou, one of the presidential candidates. The manner and context of this revelation is noteworthy. Duhamel made the comment off the record last November, unaware that he was being recorded. He said that he supported Francois Bayrou’s stand on Europe and would likely vote for him. In other words, he spoke not in the context of presidential elections, but of European elections. More than three months later, the footage was put on the Internet and Duhamel was swiftly taken off the air. Just as two newsreaders, Marie Drucker and Beatrice Schoenberg, have been put on a leave of absence for the duration of the election campaign because their partners happen to be politicians. The assumption is that they are no longer impartial and consequently unfit to do their job.
I find the idea that any journalist is personally impartial absurd. I also find it somewhat ridiculous to believe that the public is blissfully unaware of a journalist’s place on the political spectrum. The more influential the journalist — and in France TV anchors are stars in their own right — the more will be known about the company they keep and the views they hold. But even without the gossip columns, just which paper a journalist writes for is often enough to label someone as to the left or to the right.
I also find it hypocritical to penalize individual journalists for appearing impartial when whole news networks are far from independent. In Britain, the outcome of the next general elections will be largely influenced by the views of one man: Rupert Murdoch. Should Murdoch choose to switch his support back to the Conservatives, his newspapers and TV stations will be anything but impartial. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi would not have attained political power had he not had his media empire at his beck and call. France may be lucky enough not to have a Rupert Murdoch or a Silvio Berlusconi dominating its media output but that does not make French media independent of political influence. For one thing the links between major media players and certain politicians are well known.
If anything part of the reason Alain Duhamel’s support for Francois Bayrou caused such a stir is that he is not supporting a candidate from the left or from the right but the so-called third man. Had he said he would vote for Nicholas Sarkozy (indeed Alain Duhamel was thought by some to be a Sarkoziste) chances are he would still be on air — at least this is Francois Bayrou’s contention. Media coverage of Bayrou’s campaign has been a contentious issue. A key component of his campaign has been a fight for the attention of the media. In fact he has regularly accused the media of setting up the election as a duel between Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, a duel that Sarkozy is expected to win according to the pollsters. Bayrou is positioning himself firmly in the center, though his political background is closer to the center-right. He is campaigning for a unity government and a move away from the bipolarization of politics. If Sarkozy should find himself in a run-off with Bayrou, the polls suggest Sarkozy would lose. For this to happen, Bayrou needs to come second in the first round of voting. The more the media portrays him as a viable contender the better his chances of making it to the second round.
What all this points to is the level of distrust that exists regarding the media. This is by no means a French phenomenon but a global one. This is largely due to media ownership rather than journalism per se. It is not impartiality that is the issue but independence. The general public increasingly distrusts the media because it believes that the agenda is set by the usual suspects of politics and big business. Newspapers and television stations are seeing some of their influence eroded as readers and viewers turn to sources they feel they can trust more than the mainstream media, sources like blogs and other Internet-based media. One of the aspects I find most interesting about this is that people are turning toward information sources that are partisan. What they trust is a commentator who is open about his or her allegiance, you could call it media transparency, something akin to politicians declaring their financial interests. Broadcasting regulators enforce strict rules to ensure that political parties are given due weight and that the playing field remains fair. Journalists have a duty to present a fair and balanced account of a political campaign. Being married to a politician or making voting intentions known does not disqualify a journalist from doing his job anymore than being a citizen who votes in a general election does. If anything, the more open journalists are about their political connections, the more likely they are to be trusted by the public. It is not a journalist who should be impartial but their reporting.
Labels: Journalism
posted by HRM Deborah of Israel and the Messenger of Peace at 6:00 PM
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