Hoisted from the comments, wise words of counsel:
MH: Objective journalism is why politics have been corrupt for so long?HST: If you consider the great journalists in history, you don't see too many objective journalists on that list. H. L. Mencken was not objective. Mike Royko, who just died. I. F. Stone was not objective. Mark Twain was not objective. I don't quite understand this worship of objectivity in journalism. Now, just flat-out lying is different from being subjective.
MH: If you found yourself teaching a journalism course . . . what would your reading list be?
HST: Oh, I'd start off with Henry Fielding. I would read writers. You know, I would read Conrad, Hemingway, people who use words. That's really what it's about. It's about using words to achieve an end. And the Book of Revelation. I still read the Book of Revelation when I need to get cranked up about language. I would teach Harrison Salisbury of The New York Times. All the journalists who are known, really, have been that way because they were subjective.
I think the trick is that you have to use words well enough so that these nickle-and-dimers who come around bitching about being objective or [that] the advertisers don't like it are rendered helpless by the fact that it's good. That's the way people have triumphed over conventional wisdom in journalism.
Put another way, be as clear and precise as humanly possible in your language so your biases cannot possibly be misunderstood or misinterpreted. That way, the reader can make the most honest and educated assessment of your work.
Let's compare and contrast to one of the subjects of Matt's essay:
To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn't you be charged with a crime?
Interesting use of language, no? Why did he use the phrase "aided and abetted" rather than, say, "assisted" or "helped"? In our everyday vernacular, "aiding and abetting" is something that's done in the active service of an enemy. But who is Ed Snowden an enemy of? He hasn't declared war on anybody or any agency. He just downloaded some classified documents, and shared them with a reporter. So either David Gregory---unconsciously, perhaps---is putting his own biases on display, i.e., he honestly believes that Ed Snowden really is an enemy of . . . something, or else he's just engaging in sloppy use of language, which is generally indicative of equally sloppy thinking.
Like Matt says, we all have built-in biases---they're our cognitive baggage---and our integrity as writers, bloggers, reporters, etc. hinges on presenting them as self-consciously and transparently as possible. But you can't have it both ways. You can't draw an overtly biased inference about aiding and abetting [fill in the blank] while simultaneously claiming that you were asking an objective question. Not if you're engaging in honest discourse, at least.
---Baron V
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