An indy student journalist reaction to allegations of subjectivity as an impairment of information reliability and journalistic quality information produced via attachment journalism.

A journalist's complaint

I would first of all like to point out that CMAQ cannot be targeted because it contains editorial(sic) articles; branding CMAQ as an untrustable information source on that basis would be ridiculous. CMAQ is an excellent platform and cannot be held responsible for content. Doing so denotes a total misunderstanding of the open publishing method. I am wondering whether this person thinks CMAQ should commence censoring excessively editorial articles for the sake of objectivity and historical archiving of world events. Why else write such a letter? I'm puzzled. CMAQ gets contributed to by gazillions of individual journalists without any assigning on CMAQ's part. There is no such thing as CMAQ "editors" other than the usual moderation for decency's sake. Writing to the "editors" implies you'd want them to make changes to insure an objectivity standard, which would be totally in contradiction with CMAQ policy, objectives and functionning. I'm puzzled.

Anyhoo, let me cut to the chase..

Frankly, I'm getting quite displeased with all the severe,misplaced and unjustified criticism I, many of my fellow journalists and the CMAQ have been receiving lately. It is as if subjectivity interveining in a journalistic "account"/analysis has somehow magically become necessarily diminutive of the journalistic quality of the information thereby produced. That has yet to be proven, but critics frequently use this axiom as the basis of their diatribes against CMAQ and alternative media. Simple thinking is the basis for easy criticism once again......

For some weird reason (scientism?), it is nowadays expected of journalists to be scientists of information, wheathermen of actuality and omniscient witnesses of reality. Facts, and only facts. Hey! A journalistic account doesn't imply a journalist is an accountant! Adding columns of facts will never do you any good without interpretation of these facts....

Journalists are people (and are, therefore, subjective) who write (choosing their subjects and words in a subjective way)(try choosing objectively..) using their personal experience and anterior knowledge, their eyes and ears. That is the very ESSENCE of the subjective. They write about subjective multidimensional human and social phenomena, which are in many ways very much more complex than a galaxy's inner workings; they are subjective persons, they write of people, and people are subjective.

It is beyond my average intelligence to understand why people expect coverage of political events to be the same as that of a home fire or a flood. Politics is power, influence, subtle systems, cloak and dagger stuff or blatant lies; politics is people. Demanding an objective account of the subjective would imply leaving out immense chunks of information, and would amount to reductionnism. Surely, that is worse than bias... Bias is forever present, one cannot expect to overcome it. It is peception; distorsion always occuring in RE-presentation.

Indeed, journalism is presenting-again (RE-presenting) what reality appeared to be. By no means is it reality itself as it is/was/will be. And that is leaving out all the retroactive and active effects of journalism on reality... What is reality. SOme would say what you can make of it; that is what you gather of it AND how you shape it at the same time.

Reality is in the mind (1984). How do you expect me to hand it to you in print?

I've already outlined the myth of objectivity. Additionnaly, let me stress the psychological factor, which can be very trying to journalists. In Genoa, some journalists filmed and photographed and wrote about an unarmed protestor getting shot point-blank... A journalist is a person. And a person who sees another person getting shot in the head by police without apparent reason has sufficient cause for alarm. And that will transpire in the writing. Unless the journalist retains. But then, is his impression of the moment not part of the information also? Will he not retain more than just his subjective perspective?

I belieive it is FACTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE for a journalist to report facts. If he only makes so much as a SELECTION, a CHOICE, an INTERPRETATION, a LINK, he leaves objectivity.

Which leaves us with two options pertaining to the myth of objectivity. Pretend or accept. Pretending is what this person is asking us to do. That would mean sticking with the traditionnal objective journalist image and ignoring all the excellent points in this e-mail :) whilst still worshipping "objectivity".

To accept non-objectivity, we must try to understand why some journalists feel they become accomplices to events like the Genoa shooting, the Quebec Summit civil rights suspension and other unethical and inhuman occcurences in areas of civil unrest if they don't advocate for what they believe is the right thing. This new form of journalism is referred to as journalism of attachment.

Journalists both "encourage the public awareness required to enhance conflict resolution" and "place fairness above all and demand action to be taken against those who have committed atrocities in conflict zones" (HOLGUIN, Lina Maria, "Journalism of attachement: virtue or vice", Peacekeeping and International Relations, July-October 1997, Vol. 26, Issue 4/5, p. 10).

This form of journalism is openly biased in favor of one side, which the journalist believes is the right one. This form of journalism stops pretending, openly states a perspective and attempts to convince the reader of what the journalist believes is the right interpretation of the occuring events, the interpretation that will serve both the citizen and the common good the most. Accepting its own objectivity makes this journalism better. The only restriction is one of diversity: as long as there are multiple and diverging subjective voices providing this sort of information, one can form an articulate and relevant and personnal opinion by synthetizing, comparing, etc. between the different sources of information. Concentration is therefore essentially a bad thing for journalism of attachment.

Let me quote myself. :)

"Sont donc a votre disposition les fruits de la désillusion au sommet, de la
proximité de l'action, d'un journalisme d'attachement qui, honnêtement et franchement,
a choisi de prendre parti en faveur des manifestants pacifiques en présence à Québec;
contre le dispositif de "sécurité" excessif, le non-respect des libertés fondamentales et la
propagande médiatique servant à justifier ces deux inexcusables méfaits; contre
l'entrave au travail des journalistes, le musèlement, l'intimidation, pour la liberté de
presse, contre l'entrave au travail des médics et secouristes bénévoles, contre la
mondialisation strictement économique et ses répercussions et intentions
diamétralement opposées à l'intérêt commun, à l'humanitarisme, l'humanisme,
l'"humanitude", nous tous, enfin".

(http://iquebec.ifrance.com/tdu/redac.htm)

The way I do journalism is the second way, the attachment way. Not a bystander, I participated in Quebec and I believe I got to understand much more than any of the mainstreams... On our website intro, we specify our position on the events, and we avoid misunderstanding by honestly stating our bias. I believe the informaiton produced in such a way to be of acceptable journalistic value and will not stand for ideologies that categorize thos of us who write in the sort as bad or not-journalists(sic) because we happen to have an opinion and the honesty to state it at the same time.