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University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign *

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200

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Arts Humanities

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Feb 20, 2024

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docx

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4

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Jour 200 2/27/23 The Impact of Objectivity in Modern Journalism Independence and objectivity are essential pillars of journalism, and aid in ensuring the public receives accurate and unbiased reporting. However, maintaining objectivity can be challenging, particularly in today's politically polarized environment. Objectivity requires journalists to report on issues without taking sides, but this can be difficult when values and experiences navigate how and what journalists report on. One of the challenges of objectivity is that it can be difficult to separate personal values and experiences from reporting. Objectivity requires journalists to report on a topic without taking a side. But journalists are human beings, and the audience a journalist serves may affect how they report. Even the language and word choices used in reporting can reflect underlying biases, without the journalist even realizing it. A case study from University of Texas regarding whether objectivity in journalism is an ethical requirement or impediment states “ it has been argued that neutrality or objectivity in judgment doesn’t actually exist and therefore is an impossible standard to meet .” Given this information It is evident that objectivity holds journalists to an achievable standard.  
There are many examples of difficulties journalists face while attempting to report objectively in today’s political environment,   In “Principles of American Journalism” Stephanie Craft says “The Post-Gazette editors were essentially saying that a black reporter could not be objective in covering protests over the police killing a black man and the systematic racism underlying it”. This is a prime example of how objectivity in journalism can be subjective, complicated, and even exclude journalists from reporting. Separating people from their experiences and values is impossible, especially when expected to report for the benefit of a specific community or audience. This perspective to serve the public is important for democracy. Objectivity can get in the way of this as it requires journalists to have no position on what they're reporting. But if there is no view or motive then it is difficult to benefit the public. This is why engaged independence is important.  Independence ensures that journalists aren't taking any side but the public when reporting. Engaged independence allows journalists to engage with their audiences and follow the facts. This helps journalists report in the best interest of the community as the journalists remain independent and unbiased while providing the necessary context and facts of story. Aside from engaged independence, fact checking is much more accessible now. It is easier to combat misinformation and audiences have more polarized interests and beliefs. This shows that the need for traditional objectivity is fading. Especially when people are so politically divided. An article from the conversation describes this by saying  “ Americans increasingly exist in highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own information universes .” This shows how different people’s perspectives are. Along with
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