Values in American Journalism
Printed Page 387
Although newsworthiness criteria reveal how journalists define news, they do not tell us much about the wide range of values that have emerged in American journalism. Perhaps the most prominent and obvious of these values is neutrality, or the apparent lack of bias, a quality that remains prized even in a more polarized environment that has given rise to more opinionated forms of news.
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The Contemporary Journalist: Pundit or Reporter?
Journalists discuss whether the 24/7 news cycle encourages reporters to offer opinions more than facts.
Discussion: What might be the reasons reporters should give opinions, and what might be the reasons they shouldn’t?
Neutrality
Journalists generally believe that they are—and should be—neutral observers who present “facts” and information without judging them. Neutrality, they maintain, lends them greater credibility. Conventions such as the inverted-pyramid news lead (starting reports with the most important information), the careful attribution of sources (favoring quoted interview subjects rather than the reporter’s analysis), the minimal use of adverbs and adjectives (getting rid of ornate, flowery language in order to look “factual”), and a detached third-person point of view (using the omniscient or all-knowing authorial point of view favored by many novelists) all help reporters present their findings in a supposedly neutral way.
Yet the desire to be neutral also stems from a less noble goal: to reach as many readers and viewers as possible. In addition, neutrality is an unreachable ideal. Merely by deciding which information and experience to include in a news story, journalists cannot help but present a point of view on the story’s topic. Indeed, surveys have shown that while journalists may work hard to claim neutrality, most people regard them as politically biased. (“See Media Literacy Case Study: Bias in the News.”)
Other Values in Journalism
Neutral journalism is a selective process and is governed by a deeper set of subjective beliefs that are not neutral. Some sociologists, including Herbert Gans, who studied the newsroom cultures of CBS, NBC, Newsweek, and Time in the 1970s, generalize that several basic “enduring values” have been shared by most American reporters and editors. These values include ethnocentrism (viewing other cultures through an American “lens”), responsible or benign capitalism (the assumption that the main goal of business is to enhance prosperity for everyone), small-town pastoralism (favoring small, rural communities over big cities), and a major emphasis on individualism and personal stories over the operations of large institutions or organizations.2 Many of these beliefs are still prevalent in today’s more fragmented news culture, though they are undergoing shifts along with the rest of the industry.
- Ethnocentrism. By ethnocentrism, Gans means that reporters judge other countries and cultures on the basis of how “they live up to or imitate American practices and values.” This remains true of many news outlets, although the ubiquity of the Internet has greatly increased the diversity of news sources available in some countries, making other perspectives more accessible to many Americans.
- Responsible capitalism. Another value Gans described as held by American journalists, responsible capitalism, assumes that the purpose of business is not to maximize profits but “to create increased prosperity for all.” Gans points out that although most reporters and editors condemn monopolies, they provide “little implicit or explicit criticism of the oligopolistic nature of much of today’s economy.” 3 This continues today, complicated by the fact that many news outlets are owned by large, multinational corporations. In the wake of the 2008–09 financial crisis, more news outlets began to report on businessworld wrongdoing, but conflicts of ownership remain.
- Small-town pastoralism. Another value that Gans identified was small-town pastoralism, whereby journalists tend to favor the small over the large and the rural over the urban. Many journalists continue to frame stories about rustic communities with crime or drug problems—like illegal meth labs springing up in isolated rural areas—as country life being contaminated by corrupt big city values.
- Individualism. According to Gans, many reporters have been attracted to the journalism profession because it has tended toward or praised an individualistic, rugged tenacity for confronting and exposing corruption. This value is further revealed in the many news stories that focus on individuals who have overcome personal adversity. Yet such stories neglect to acknowledge or analyze the role of large social organizations and institutions in individual and personal achievements.