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The view from nowhere and objectivity in the media [revised]

Okay, after a solid bout of teaching, I can return to this piece. Rosen has attacked my interpretation, and rightly so. I ascribed to him views he did not hold. But, as I say elsewhere, this blog is for ill-formed thoughts that happen to pass through my forebrain. The particular form of ASD I undoubtedly have leads me to rapidly skip from what is said to what I think that it means, which is what happened here. I have therefore edited the piece but left my original comments struck out so you can see what I said that raised his ire, and the edits are in bold.

Jay Rosen, a professor in journalism at NYU, has for some time been critical of what he calls “the view from nowhere” in the media. By this he means

Three things. In pro journalism, American style, the View from Nowhere is a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer. Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position “impartial.” Second, it’s a means of defense against a style of criticism that is fully anticipated: charges of bias originating in partisan politics and the two-party system. Third: it’s an attempt to secure a kind of universal legitimacy that is implicitly denied to those who stake out positions or betray a point of view. American journalists have almost a lust for the View from Nowhere because they think it has more authority than any other possible stance.

Instead, Rosen thinks that journalists ought to make a virtue out of the necessity that arises from having a point of view, and just assert what it is. Fox News (“Faux Noise”) already does just that, and the recent kerfuffle over Olbermann supporting Democratic candidates suggests that the Left does it too (but surely not to the same extent!).

Something is lost here.

The view from nowhere is a phrase that was used to describe an impossible epistemology, by Thomas Nagel: that we could know the world other than as parts of it, as observers. Rosen has taken this into the artificial world of the media. Journalists are embedded in the political world; they cannot disavow this in order to assert their authority.

I have a problem with this, both Nagel’s and Rosen’s as it seems to imply that we cannot be even slightly objective. The ideal of objectivity is necessary if we are not to fall into the rather pervasive and sometimes postmodern view that all viewpoints are equally privileged. It is not that we can reach it, necessarily, but there are degrees of objectivity that serve as counterbalances to the noisy viewpoint warfare of modern politics (and it is all about politics, even in Nagelian contexts). As Browning famously and quotably said, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” [Andrea del Sarto 1855].

The ideal of objectivity prevents anyone from saying “I have a viewpoint and I must be listened to with equal seriousness”. One cannot take, for example, the views of a fascist as seriously as the views of a proponent of the rule of law.

Yet, this is what it seems Rosen wants. It appears to me that abandoning the ideal of objectivity means we have to take every view equally seriously, in a tu quoque: if it’s okay for Olbermann, then it’s okay for Beck. Rosen implicitly accepts this, although (as you will see in the comments) he explicitly denies it. I can understand why he does, but the asymptotic ideal of getting it right should not be forgotten. To illustrate my point, allow me to use an example from philosophy of science.

There is a problem known as the Pessimistic Metainduction: all our previous scientific theories turned out to be wrong; ergo our present ones will too. An implication often made by epistemic relativists is that therefore any view is equally good, for it is all just duelling authorities. Creationists, who love to argue that science is just another religion, adore this argument, but it has a serious point in defending antirealism.

Now, would we want to say that one perspective on science is just as good as any other simply because science is a human enterprise? Global warming is as good as Climate Change Denialism and the only difference is that one is privately funded? Really? There are degrees of rightness and wrongness. Our global warming models will inevitably turn out to be wrong in some degree; that is, they will be inaccurate in some manner. But the claim there is no such thing, or that humans do not cause global warming is false, flat out.

Consider this in the context of reportage for human politics. Sure, we do not have to give equal time to those who think that the US Constitution was Christian, does not give the government the right to tax, and so forth. That doesn’t mean we should at least strive to find the debate where a legitimate one exists. Journalism ought to be about trying to find out the truth even when it is recognised that truth is a very human thing that involves some debate.

What Rosen is rightly opposed to is false controversy, the finding of dramatic narrative where there is none to report, just because that is the very nature of the media. It requires the essential element of narrativium. But where there really is a story, the reporter should not make the mistake of thinking their own prejudices and preferences are the story. That was the error into which Gonzo Journalism fell. From the truism that the reporter cannot be objective they drew the conclusion that the reporter ought not even to try. The reporter became the story. We are dealing with the unintended consequences of that fallacy ever since. It needs a name, so I will call it the Hunter S. Thompson Fallacy.

This explains, I think, why a liberal theoretician like Rosen thinks that a liberal satirist like Jon Stewart is a “wonk” (as he recently tweeted). Stewart thinks that we can and should present legitimate debates without fear or favour. Rosen seems to think that because some debates are just the political views of some proprietors with big industry interests, all debates are equally a matter of personal choices. If that were true, then I would agree they should just state it up front, and treat all media as op-ed. But it isn’t. It’s a slippery slope fallacy.

Objective reporting is important, and while we may never achieve a God’s-Eye View (another philosophy metaphor, this time by Hilary Putnam), heaven acts as a target to prevent us from sliding into he-said, she-said narrative drama. From Browning’s poem again:

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.

In later developments, Olbermann justifies his position here, and Ted Koppel attacks it here. Both deal with the objectivity issue, and debate it here. It seems that appeals to objectivity are seen by the partisan as a dog whistle for allowing false equivalence of views, mostly by the right. I do not think that it must be a dog whistle of that kind. The right have debased a lot of ideas lately (as the left have in their turn, or do I really need to mention Brave New World and 1984?), but that doesn’t mean the ideas themselves are false in consequence. That is a well known fallacy – several in fact.

To summarise: Rosen’s epistemology implicitly denies that knowledge can be had. He may claim not to be relativistic, but I fail to see how he can avoid it if he really thinks that reportage is all about opinion. Given that he doesn’t believe he is a relativist (and neither do I), I think that he cannot give unqualified support for the View from Somewhere.

17 Comments

  1. You ever read this? (plays with idea of emplotment and Lakatos)
    * Curtis, Ron (1994) ‘Narrative Form and Normative Force: Baconian Story-Telling in Popular Science’, Social Studies of Science, vol. 24(3): 419-61.

  2. Thanks for your post. I don’t get it:

    “The ideal of objectivity prevents anyone from saying “I have a viewpoint and I must be listened to with equal seriousness”. One cannot take, for example, the views of a fascist as seriously as the views of a proponent of the rule of law. Yet, this is what it seems Rosen wants. I can understand why he does, but the asymptotic ideal of getting it right should not be forgotten.”

    You are wrong–very wrong–to argue that I have forgotten about the imperative of “getting it right.” You are wrong to associate me with relativism. In fact almost everything you say about what I believe is wrong. And the only way you can assert any of that is by ignoring a pretty substantial part of my post. Why you would do this is a puzzle to me. I guess you found it easier to argue with someone who thinks objectivity is in all cases bunk. But I am not that guy. And you should know this, because I say so directly:

    The first time was this: “We can’t transcend all our starting points. No matter how far it pulls back the camera is still occupying a position. We can’t actually take the ‘view from nowhere, but this doesn’t mean that objectivity is a lie or an illusion. Our ability to step back and the fact that there are limits to it– both are real. And realism demands that we acknowledge both. (Italics added)

    Ready for the second time? “When people talk about objectivity in journalism they have many different things in mind. Some of these I have no quarrel with. You could even say I’m a ‘fan.’ For example, if objectivity means trying to ground truth claims in verifiable facts, I am definitely for that. If it means there’s a ‘hard’ reality out there that exists beyond any of our descriptions of it, sign me up. If objectivity is the requirement to acknowledge what is, regardless of whether we want it to be that way, then I want journalists who can be objective in that sense. Don’t you? If it means trying to see things in that fuller perspective Thomas Nagel talked about–pulling the camera back, revealing our previous position as only one of many–I second the motion. If it means the struggle to get beyond the limited perspective that our experience and upbringing afford us… yeah, we need more of that, not less.” (Italics added)

    You should change your post. It is misleading and wrong about what I think and what I say in the piece you are writing about. You are arguing with someone you want to quarrel with, and that person is not me.

    • John S. Wilkins John S. Wilkins

      I’ll check the piece and revise my view, and modify the post. I can’t do this right now due to lecture prep. However I was not attacking you so much as trying to come to grips with the philosophical issues. I’ve been reading you for a good year now, and these are the concerns I have with the view from somewhere, whether you have properly qualified it or not.

  3. I don’t have a position on the Wilkins vs. Rosen spat. But I do have an opinion on what passes for news reporting these days – and my opinion is that it stinks.

    No, I don’t want all news to look like FOX nor like Olbermann. But I would like it to look a bit more like Walter Cronkite (for those who remember). The trouble today, is that the media give an opinion from the political left and an opinion from the political right, and they call that “balance”. However, truth does matter, and journalism should be striving for it. It’s okay to also give differing opinions, if there is some guidance that gets us closer to the truth.

    Remembering back to older days, and perhaps this was mostly in Australia, I recall when news reports would call on experts to explain the story. And the experts were often university professors. Today, I see the report calling on “experts”, but the “experts” are just politicians or representatives of politically oriented think tanks. Can’t we get back to a better (i.e. more objective) class of expertise than we are seeing today?

    • Still thinking over how I’ll respond to Rosen, although I wonder if he is arguing that he is not a relativist by assertion rather than philosophically. However, one thing that I think indicates the epistemic poverty of modern journalism is that journalists interview journalists more than they interview anyone else (and public economists are basically journalists) rather than interview those with actual expertise.

  4. Snarkyxanf Snarkyxanf

    To defend Rosen (not that he probably needs it), I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean “view from nowhere” as a synonym for objectivity, but rather a particularly useless kind: lack of bias through lack of content.

    If a journalist presents a set of facts and arguments to declare that this position is True, then she has definitely staked out a position in the argument. What I take Rosen as objecting to is the common practice of, confronted with the difficulty of ascertaining what the truth is, simply putting the competing opinions up without perspective.

    Remember, it is Fox News that runs with the slogan “We report, you decide”. Ideally, a journalist should have more commitment to the truth than just acting as a press-release conduit.

    • John S. Wilkins John S. Wilkins

      Yes. It was the implication that a view from somewhere is mandated by the rejection of pure objectivity that interested me. I will revise the post to be a bit less personal.

      • Snarkyxanf Snarkyxanf

        Well, I think the tension is that a lot of journalism covers ground where it is easy to see that objectivity is hard to find: politics, etc. If you take a stand on platform issues, half the voting public is ready and waiting to flame you.

        Also, it is worth making a distinction in news between an objective voice and an objective statement. After all, science is ideally a method for non-impartial actors to come up with objective knowledge. It would be nice if we could come up with a model for journalism with similar qualities.

  5. jeff jeff

    The diversity of viewpoints expressed in these replies is a great illustration of Nagel’s point. And as far as I have read of Nagel (his style is difficult to read for me), he was not anti-realist or postmodernist in an absolute sense – neither objectivity nor subjectivity have exclusive claims to truth.

  6. In case you haven’t heard it, Rosen describes his motives for adopting the phrase ‘The View from Nowhere’, and what he means by it, in his latest podcast with Dave Winer (starting at 24:30).

  7. Adam Adam

    Thanks for bringing up this interesting topic. As an American news consumer, I have become a fan of the Economist magazine in part because of their willingness to have a perspective. However, when I look at other English news publications with a perspective, I often think that they’ve allowed their perspective to take over, resulting in sensationalized and inaccurate storytelling.

    One comment in this post struck me as odd (though it is a common sentiment): “The ideal of objectivity prevents anyone from saying ‘I have a viewpoint and I must be listened to with equal seriousness’.”

    The notion that “I must be listened to” seems to assume some sort of objectivity. A truly subjectivist interaction would presume that everyone involved has their own perspective, so any comment must be framed in terms of “what I have to say is of use to you” rather than some moral obligation to listen to and respect all opinions.

  8. These debates always make me feel naive because I maintain that there is no obvious contradiction between having a point of view and being objective. A responsible journalist, like everybody else, has a presumptive obligation to tell the truth. For example, a Republican or Democratic newscaster should fully report relevant information that hurts the interests of her party and, obviously, shouldn’t make up stories about the opposition. That rule may not seem like much, but following it in good faith would require a revolution in the practices of the cable news shows.

  9. I don’t find the spatial metaphor — nowhere, somewhere — terribly useful. The problem, it seems to me, is that, on the one hand events can be terribly complex and determining ‘the facts on the ground’ can be difficult, if not, to some extent, impossible. On the other hand, we’ve got a brain that’s adept a finding patterns, even in more or less random data, e.g. the man in the moon, the canals on Mars. In that situation, what procedures can you follow that will increase the likelihood that the patterns you see are really there? It’s not at all clear to me that there’s a general answer to that question beyond checking multiple multiple sources.

    The thing about political differences, it seems to me, is that ultimately they are about different preferences. And there’s legitimate ‘free play’ in the matter of preferences. However, preferences are often rationalized by some account of how the world ‘really is,’ and so can collide with the effort to determine, well, what’s really going on. And that brings us back to the methodological question: what can we do to be honest?

  10. Let me put it another way. This…

    The ideal of objectivity prevents anyone from saying “I have a viewpoint and I must be listened to with equal seriousness”. One cannot take, for example, the views of a fascist as seriously as the views of a proponent of the rule of law.

    Yet, this is what it seems Rosen wants. I can understand why he does, but the asymptotic ideal of getting it right should not be forgotten.

    … is bullshit. And you are bullshitting your readers by leaving it up.

    • John S. Wilkins John S. Wilkins

      I said I’d get to it. Have you never taught?

  11. Ian H Spedding FCD Ian H Spedding FCD

    “”I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire.”

    — Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1926)

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