[TangoTrotFox]

Most news agencies claim, on paper, to aim for impartiality. Emotional response tends to be the opposite of impartial reporting since emotions generally imply a moral response to something, which in turn is quickly stepping away from impartiality.

[1] BBC: Impartiality lies at the core of the BBC's commitment to its audiences.

[2] NPR: Our journalists conduct their work with honesty and respect, and they strive to be both independent and impartial in their efforts.

[3] SPJ (society of professional journalists): Journalists Should: ... Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.

Many newspapers are archived online. It's really phenomenal to see the change in historic and modern reporting. For instance this [4] is the NYT's reporting on Pearl Harbor and the declaration of war that immediately followed. Keep in mind that this was shortly prior to the mass production of incredibly dehumanizing propaganda and us rounding up hundreds of thousands of people in the west coast who even looked remotely Japanese, telling them to take all they could carry, and throwing them into concentration camps. The point here is to emphasize what the zeitgeist was at that moment in time, yet their reporting remained remarkably true to the ethics most media still claims to hold to, yet rarely practice -- NYT now included among them.

[1] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/bbc-edi...

[2] - http://ethics.npr.org/

[3] - https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

[4] - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general...

[mcphage]

> Emotional response tends to be the opposite of impartial reporting

"Impartial" is not the same as "unemotional". Part of the job of the news is to put what happens in context—not just what happened, but why it matters. News organizations aren't striving to be unfeeling automatons merely spitting out facts.

[TangoTrotFox]

Here [1] are a wide variety of other articles from the NYT covering famous events throughout history. I think you'll find that the incredible reputation they built up was indeed driven by striving to do little other than impartially report on the facts. Which, in the past, they did an excellent job of. It sounds simple, but in many ways it's perhaps the hardest thing to do. Both from a business perspective, and from a human one.

This [2] is an absolutely phenomenal article by Robert Kaiser, "The Bad News About the News." Kaiser worked at the Washington Post for more than 50 years as a reporter and editor, leaving only shortly after Bezos purchased the company. It gets into all the facets of the rise and fall of the media, and why things have changed so markedly. I don't really think I can do it justice with cliff notes, other than to give it a strong recommendation if you're really interested in the history of all of this.

[1] - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/samp...

[2] - http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-...

[watwut]

Emotions don't imply moral response. Emotions may be caused also by empathy, fear, threat, gain and so on. Impartial and independent are not the same as insisting that "both sides are the same" either.

In here, it is a reported a fact that killed women and children received no trial and no presumption of innocence. It highlights asymmetry between trial soldiers will (theoretically) receive and what they have done. That is perfectly fine.

If the reporting made you feel like what soldiers did is symmetrical to them being on trial, then the reporting would be biased.

> Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.

That does not imply consumer should feel neutral about those repugnant views. If consumers feel neutral after hearing repugnant views, then journalist sugarcoated those views to make them look more innocent then they are.

[TangoTrotFox]

Impartial reporting does not mean trying to make the reader remain emotionless or avoid coming to judgement. Facts themselves will frequently stir strong emotions. For instance in this incident even the most impartial reporting of the facts is likely to leave most readers with nothing short of disgust for the alleged offenders. The facts speak for themselves.

An excellent resource I linked above is this [1]. That's a series of historic articles from the NYT on famous events throughout history. You'll invariably find quite impartial articles, yet the facts themselves again speak quite loudly. This [2], for instance, is their reporting on the sinking of the Titanic. That is just an incredible piece of reporting. And though there are absolutely 0 emotional cues used or even implied, one can nonetheless 'feel' the story through the facts alone.

[1] - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/samp...

[2] - https://static01.nyt.com/packages/pdf/archives/Disasters-Tit...

[watwut]

That has only loose assotiation to the rest of thread. Also, new yourk times articles you linked are in opinion section. Literally, opinions.

The titanic report has assumptions in it and its introduction is designed to evoke feels. Not much emotional, but hardly less then topic at hand.