Someone Has to Do It: On the Responsibility of Journalists

Journalists: those rarefied and indispensable members of society that seem to so gallantly shoulder the demands of the people while simultaneously angering onlookers in droves.

The fine line that sits snugly between objectivity and advocacy is one that has been tiptoed by the best and brightest journalists—of both the partisan and the impartial schools of thought—for generations.

Undoubtedly this will continue as a point of controversy for generations to come. And yet there remains a point when and where a journalist must answer to their own humanity and forego that sacred dedication to impartiality. 

Like our favorite childhood summer, the days of neutrality have come and gone. This means that a journalist must take excessive care in the things they say and the nuance with which they say it. It is a challenge—but someone has to do it. 

Fulfilling the duties of a journalist must indeed happen while playing the role of a responsible citizen. This hopefully takes place regardless of whether one attempts to do so or not; for before we are journalists, we are people first.

This should demand that we stand for justice even if it means opting for one side of an argument over another. While this approach begets the possibility of clouding journalistic independence and fair practice, there should nonetheless be a precedence of choosing humanity over objectivity, a bias to choose justice over a marriage to mere recounting. 

I do not posit that explicit advocacy, however, is the role journalists should aspire to.

In some cases, potentially (remember the Pentagon Papers?). But it is possible to report a story, provide analysis that favors the just, and take an unambiguous position without necessarily filling the role of advocate or even “social justice warrior.”

A journalist can indeed do this, and should be committed to doing as much. But for a journalist to provide blatant advocacy only draws the critical words of the unsatisfied viewer.

"Wisdom journalism"—the term so aptly coined in Beyond News: The Future of Journalism—leaves room for guidance without advocacy and intelligence without impartiality. 

One way this can happen is if a journalist reports a story while also stating that, for example, within the story is a right and wrong, a good and evil. This is distinct from advocacy.

Advocacy does, at least in my mind, overstep the boundaries of good journalism in a manner that forces the journalist to explicitly join the fight rather than report and analyze wisely. 

Providing analysis that parses through murky waters and imparts a guiding light for the public should be the aim of a modern journalist, though disseminating wisdom can occur without wearing the hat of an advocate.

The task is Sisyphean surely—but someone has to do it.