Sue Gardner wrote:
Brian McNeil wrote:
Hi Sue,
[This is CC’d to the Wikinews mailing list, I’d like to take up the
discussion there but we really **need** your expertise and input.]
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy#Editorials.2C_Book…
The above link is to a – somewhat heated – discussion about expansion
of the project scope. Unfortunately, those opposed are of the opinion
there is no way we can work around this and develop policy to permit
an “academic” book review or well thought out Editorial piece. Their
fear is the whole site would descend into flamewars and fighting.
With your background, you may be able to break this deadlock and get a
discussion aimed at formulating policy started. How did CBC.ca handle
non-neutral, or otherwise difficult to be impartial with, material? As
one contributor has pointed out NPOV was formulated for an
encyclopedia, not a news site.
Thanks Brian. I'm on a plane most of today, but I'll try to write
something on the flight & post it later. Thanks for reminding me about
this; I _do_ want to contribute to the discussion.
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Brian, I'm sorry: it took me _a lot_ longer to respond to this than it should have.
But I've read the discussion, and FWIW here are my thoughts:
1. I think it's important to first just acknowledge that objectivity/neutrality is
actually very difficult to achieve. Over time, as people we all accrue a body of
information and observations and analysis that adds up to a worldview of some sort. We can
_aspire_ to neutrality, but ultimately we believe what we believe. It's tough -and in
some ways undesirable- to fully park our own experience when we sit down to write a
story.
Which is of course a significant argument in favour of the collaborative approach to
newsgathering. In the course of putting together a story, a conventional journalist will
be influenced by a number of people: his or her assignment editor, boss, deskmates,
cameraperson, vetters. But most newsrooms are pretty homogeneous, and most reporters
don't have the opportunity to be much influenced by people thousands of kilometers
away, or significantly younger or older, or holding radically different ideological
views.
That means that Wikinews should be able to achieve a more balanced and nuanced
"neutral point of view," compared with conventional news organizations. I'm
assuming that's part of the point of it ;-)
In general, the struggle to achieve neutrality/objectivity in news coverage is IMO worth
supporting; it's important and it's not easy. That doesn't mean I am against
opinion journalism. But I do think that objectivity (or if you prefer, neutrality or
fairness) is a core journalistic value, and should always be fundamental to a story,
unless a deliberate decision has been made to do otherwise.
2. Readers recognize and understand a variety of formats -book reviews and newspaper
editorials and viewpoint sections and advice columns- and the rules that are associated
with them. Because those labels and rules are well-established, a POV piece that falsely
purports to be neutral tends to upset people's expectations and call into question
everything else about that news operation.
3. Here's a thing that might be tough for Wikinews. At CBC.CA, part of my job was to
ensure overall balance. So for example, if we ran an opinion piece that was in favour of a
particular political view, we were expected to balance that by also running pieces
favourable towards other views, or critical of the particular view initially espoused. We
had quite a bit of flexibility in how we did that - for example, we didn't need to run
all the pieces on the same day, nor did we need to ensure mathematical precision (like, 11
"pro" pieces cancel out 11 "con" pieces). But in general, we were
expected to achieve, over time, a reasonable approximation of balance.
There were problems with this approach: it is a bit simplistic/reductionist (it assumes
views can be easily labeled and categorized), and also it inherently supports the status
quo (it's biased against minority or emerging viewpoints). But despite its flaws, it
was a reasonable system that worked pretty well.
It would however be a very tough system for Wikinews to implement. I don't think
Wikinews has an established 'desk' culture - the desk being the assignment editor,
the quality gatekeeper, the vetter and lineup function. Without a desk that has the
ability to assign/solicit/influence stories, I'm not sure how Wikinews could expect to
ensure a reasonable balance of viewpoints over time.
4. There's also the 'rules' issue I mentioned above: the idea that POV
material is expected to adhere, more-or-less, to a variety of established conventions.
Like, a restaurant reviewer is assumed to pay for his/her own food; to try to represent
audience tastes more than his/her own idiosyncrasies; to not tell the restaurant who
he/she is. And within those rules there's some latitude - for example, one newspaper
might decide it's okay if their food critic is recognized, while others go to great
lengths to protect their critics' identities. (For example, when she went to dinner,
the New York Times restaurant reviewer used to wear elaborate, constantly-changing
disguises.)
I think it would be a real challenge for Wikinews to agree on and adhere to these kinds of
conventions. (It's hard enough to adhere to basic conventions around objectivity and
NPOV.) And if you screw it up -if for example your readers find out your restaurant critic
has been accepting free meals-, it's really tough to gain back the credibility you
lose.
5. It is also, FWIW, extremely difficult to do good POV material - arguably harder than
doing straightforward news. Mostly, because it generally requires you to be engaging and
entertaining, as well as informative.
6. And lastly, I do wonder if Wikinews is the best place for opinion writing. There are
lots of online venues already for consumer reviews, some of which are pretty rich &
pretty good (e.g., Yelp, Chowhound, Amazon, IMDB). And there are plenty of sites that
offer good deep commentary on politics, the environment, science, etc. So if I were
Wikinews, I might ask myself what I think Wikinews could uniquely bring to the table.
That's what I think. If you're interested in reading what various journalistic
policybooks say about opinion journalism, I have links here (
http://del.icio.us/suegardner/journalisticpolicy ) to policybooks from the BBC, CBC, New
York Times, etc.
Hope this helps :-)
Sue