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