Spalpeen

There are a couple of interesting debates going on about the concept of the journalist.

One, over at Valleywag, looks at the recent memo that was leaked from Microsoft to Wired. Valleywag’s (or Nick Denton’s) angle is that the memo is potentially more embarrasing for Wired, because it alludes to the possibility that Wired may have given Microsoft an advance copy of the article before it was published (hence, giving Microsoft the time to prepare a PR counter is needed). Chris Anderson says they don’t give excessive advances to the people they write about, and I believe him. I think any form of “advance” should be limited to sending out an email with a link to the article after the article has been published.

I think the bigger issue is a journalist’s relationship with anyone that they write about. It is accepted nowadays that journalists have to have a “working relationship” with their subjects in order to maintain scoops, and advance info etc. This nicely meshes with a similar debate that has been going on over at Newsnight (a BBC late news show), Guido Fawkes (a popular political blogger), and Nick Robinson (BBC’s Political guy).

The summary is that Guido Fawkes interviewed Nick Robinson, and used his words to put forward the view that reporters are attempting, and failing to be “fair and balanced” — to extremely ironically use Fox News’s marketing slogan — and therefore they do not accurately represent the views and questions of the people. I think Guido’s view is that reporters should not attempt to be objective: they should be true to their subjective nature as human beings, but in the process swing to both political extremes. He also dislikes the concept of journalists working “with” politicians. I agree here. As a blogger I feel uncomfortable “knowing” the people behind the software and products that I blog about. I take comfort in the fact that I don’t have a face behind a product. I take comfort in the fact that a company cannot physically appeal to my inherently subjective “human” side.

Political reporters working in Westminster do not have this luxury. They think that it is possible to be objective whilst simultaneously “knowing” the people behind their reports. It isn’t. I foresee the best outcome of this setup being holding the ocassional story or toning down a report as a personal favour to a politician: the worst possible outcome is doing this repeatedly in order to secure scoops and maintain a “working” relationship. This is wrong. There should be a complete detachment between reporters and the subject. Politicians, technology companies, whatever: they should have no influence over how a story is written, when it gets published, and what tone it takes.

I left a comment on Nick’s blog post, but it’s not come online yet. I said in this comment that I feel as if the BBC and others are aiming to always hit the objective bullseye. The problem is that the person aiming is human, and doesn’t always hit. My argument is that if you can’t always represent equal views, then don’t attempt to. Throw out as many partisan comments as you like. Just try and throw out equal amounts of partisan comments, and to equal extremes. Accept the subjectivity, and accept that readers understand that you are subjective.