HONESTY: A refreshing change from objectivity

As reporting on the race riots sounds increasingly stale, today’s SMH contained some refreshingly honest opinions. The article,"Worlds apart, voices in unity," contained the opinion of Alex Sanchez, a "first generation Australian wog" who wrote into the SMH with his opinions on the recent riots.
Mr Sanchez's opinions are as follows.

"This is a joke. When are we going to see through this postmodern, excuse-driven, double standard bull? When?

"Whether it's Bondi rail, the northern beaches or Cronulla, this crowd want to keep others out. Be honest. You can dress it up as community, dress it up as green or environmental, but the bottom line is you don't want a basically white suburb different. You don't want ethnics or westies coming over. No siree. You have your nest egg and lifestyle to protect.

"As for the westies and Lebs, just get over it. Your victim mentality is just too much. Wake up to yourselves. The cultural strut is no replacement for the cultural cringe. Truly. Just because you come from the west or are a Leb or wog or whatever you are, it is no excuse to behave badly. Respect others and their neighbourhoods. Get off your arse, stop feeling sorry for yourself, get a job and get a life.

"What is truly remarkable about this whole Cronulla thing is how unappealing and miserable everyone is.

"The rich and protected, using whatever excuse and self-serving campaign imaginable to keep themselves rich and protected. Drunken yobbos, louts and white Aussie guys who have nothing better to do or to spend their money on, than beer and UDL cans and who drape themselves in the flag and leave the Gallipoli site a trash can.

"Macho boy-men Lebs, who get their kicks out of harassing families, girls and tooling around in souped-up cars and Adidas trackpants, whingeing that the world doesn't understand them. So called progressive journos and activists moaning on about racist Australia and that miserable John Howard, while never venturing outside their suburbs. Right-wing shock-jocks banging on about multiculturalism as they tuck into a Thai dinner and get their house cleaned by a Filipino.

"Honestly. What this all needs is some honesty. And admission that when push comes to shove, it's easier to make an excuse for yourself than it is to do something about your behaviour. Thanks for nothing, postmodernism."

Thank you, Alex Sanchez.

Now to my point of contemplation: As we have certainly learnt in the past weeks objectivity is certainly a journalistic aim and an ethical principle which underlies the majority of modern news reporting. Dating back to America in the 1920s where the American Society of Newspaper Editors concluded generally that "news reports should be free from opinion or bias of any kind. (Pratte in Schudson, 2001, p.162)

In the argument I am trying to construct here, I am by no means suggesting that we should do away with objectivity. Rather, I intend to raise examples where attempts at objectivity have become glaringly obvious, in my mind, damaging the overall value of the story.

This morning's front cover of the SMH showed Middle Eastern youths training to be lifeguards at the now notorious North Cronulla Beach. A similar depiction was prominent in last Saturday's SMH in the memorable article entitled "A lesson in Beach etiquette, Shire-style.” Another glowing example of news (if you can call it that) being overly balanced and objective was a particularly painful interview on A Current Affair (they havent yet posted the transcript online) last week featuring the white, Australian, female headmistress of a Sydney Muslim school dressed in full Muslim garb. I am by no means denying the relevance of this woman's opinions, however, I spent more brain power thinking about how politically correct and how artificially balanced the interview was, than actually listening to what was being said.

As the days pass I am finding news stories on the riots increasingly dull and boring, despite the quiet giggles I have had at some of the more blatant attempts at pleasing as many sectors of society as possible in the one article or news report.
I think I can safely put a lot of this journalistic pussy footing around a number of issues down to arguments raised in Schudson's Article "The Objectivity Norm in American Journalism." Schudson writes:

Journalists live in the public eye. They are uninsulated from public scrutiny - they have no recondite language, little fancy technology, no mirrors or mysteries to shield them from the public. There are strong reasons for journalists to seek publicly-appealing moral norms to protect them from criticism, embarrassment or even lawsuits.

To come to some sort of conclusion after days of articles which screamed objectivity, the honest ranting and raving from Alex Sanchez was the most refreshing piece of writing I have come across to date on the topic, confirming the valuable place of honesty and the opinion column in the age where journalists seem to have little choice but to bite their tongues…