The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity

The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity from Lewis Raven Wallace is an important and timely history of how the idea of objectivity has become the unattainable stated necessity of journalism at the same time that it is used to make sure that many events and situations are presented in a distinctly nonobjective manner.

Even journalists who believe that objectivity should be the goal of journalism acknowledge that it is an unattainable goal. Humans are subjective, we have opinions and viewpoints. Those will always play into how we do anything we do. Largely, those who deny their subjectivity within an area, in this case journalism, present the more lopsided views because they haven't taken into account their show more own biases. Those who acknowledge their subjectivity can at least make an effort to make sure their accounts are fair. Fair is not the same as objective and it is not the same as balanced. It means that you're not intentionally skewing facts, or ignoring facts, to make your view appear better.

Wallace uses people and incidents from the past century or so to highlight that not only has "objectivity" never been fully endorsed but also how the claims to objectivity have largely been used to silence those who don't subscribe to the status quo. People of color, women, LGBTQIA+ people have all been shut out from representation on the basis of claims of being unable to be objective. Yet, as Wallace notes, no white male journalist has been taken off a story solely because it involves a white male. Things that make me go hmmmmmm.

Wallace does not advocate for distorted stories but from previously marginalized positions. Rather that fair and accurate journalism has nothing to do with the unattainable concept of objectivity.

As an aside, I saw a brief review from someone who claims to be an "educator." This person took about a dozen words out of the first chapter, took them out of context, then recontextualized them within an amazingly distorted dog-whistle laden "review." If you see that, just ignore it, that person obviously is not only biased but is perfectly comfortable being dishonest and misleading. There will be plenty of people, journalists and nonjournalists alike, who will disagree with some or all of Wallace's viewpoints. That is to be expected. If you think you're one of those people, I think you should read this book so you can hear different opinions expressed well and then make sure you're comfortable with wherever you stand on the issue.

I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in our current social, cultural, and political environment, especially as it pertains to journalism and the dissemination of current events. If read with an open mind, I believe everyone can take something useful from this book.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less