[tylerkahn]

I'd prefer journalists themselves not take a position on the spying or what Snowden did.

The statement contains no judgement either way.

Sounds like you're the target market for Glenn Greenwald's new news organization.

https://firstlook.org/

[bediger4000]

"Taking no position" often leads to annoying "he said/she said" lazy journalism. You know, where no matter how obvious the truth is, they find some photogenic dimwit to oppose the issue. Lazy journalists can then claim they took no position, and presented both sides of the issue in question.

This is essentially the same as the Creationist's stated desire to "teach the controversy". Rubbish. Show the evidence and say what it adds up to.

[TillE]

"Controversial" really is the favorite weasel word of that brand of journalism. Sometimes there's an actual debate, but more often than not, one side or the other is just factually wrong.

[deveac]

Exactly. Too many news organizations eschew investigative reporting and instead lazily settle for "presenting both sides." And what if there are more than two sides? Well two is enough. It'll do.

To even decide to report on an issue in the first place is to take a stand on its value. News organizations are doing the public a disservice in stopping there.

[dreamfactory2]

No such thing as a neutral position. Journalism editorialises by definition.

[Crito]

Exactly. If I were making a "neutral" or "position-less" documentary on the planet Earth, it would be impossible for me to actually do. I could ignore flat earthers, but then I would arguably be taking a position in the matter of "what is the geometry of the earth.". But if I gave them equal screen-time, or really any screen-time, then I would be unfairly giving them far more screen-time than they were deserving of making me biased in favor of them.

The entire notion of journalism without any sort of position, biases, or editorialize is absurd. Nothing but a completely raw and unfiltered datastream of everything that I receive could possibly qualify, except that of course would not longer be journalism of any sort.

[r00fus]

Neutral position is a platonic ideal, you're correct.

To ignore that ideal is where journalism turns into "entertainment" and "propaganda".

[chc]

I don't think this is really true, and I think it's a dangerous perspective to hold because it excuses biased journalism as "honest." It is entirely possible to present facts in a fair and even-handed manner. These facts may ultimately favor one party over another, but this does not make the journalist's position partial or editorialized.

[nostrademons]

It's only possible when you're able to report all the facts. If this was the case we would have no need for journalists, we'd all go straight to the original source. As soon as you need to choose a subset of facts to present, you have to choose which subset, which introduces bias. And remember that a fact is something like "When we MRI'd this subjects head under these conditions, this is the image that resulted", not "Scientists believe that wearing tin-foil hats causes cancer."

Take global warming, for example. Many media outlets seek to present an "unbiased viewpoint" on that issue by reaching out to climate-change deniers in addition to climate-change scientists who believe in global warming. But that ignores the fact that climate-change scientists who support global warming outnumber climate-change scientists who deny it by something like 400:1. But that ignores the fact (principle, actually, technically this isn't a fact) that science isn't decided by majority vote, it's decided by looking at the data and the evidence.

The actual facts in the global warming debate is that we've recorded these temperatures at these locations across the globe, and they appear to be rising over the last century. But that's not what people are interested in: the "story" is "Are humans causing it? What can we do about it? What will happen next?"

[bokonist]

"The actual facts in the global warming debate is that we've recorded these temperatures at these locations across the globe, and they appear to be rising over the last century."

To be clear - the only fact involved is the measurement of at a particular time at a particular station. The temperature of the world as a whole, and trend in temperature over a century, is a matter of interpretation and analysis, not pure fact. All sorts of statistics needs to be applied to clean the data, adjust for changes in station location, adjust for the growth of urban heat islands, etc. To see an example of the debate over these adjustments - http://climateaudit.org/2010/12/26/nasa-giss-adjusting-the-a... - changes in adjustments can have a large impact on the resulting graph.

[Spooky23]

Not true. It is quite possible to report both sides of a story. Fair reporting doesn't mean opinion less.

[dreamfactory2]

This is logically impossible. Journalists selectively choose what to write about - this is an act of curation. This is further editorialised by the news organisation. What do you think an editor does and why does every news organisation employ tiers of them?

Even calling it a story is well, telling a story. Presenting in terms of two sides further frames as a kind of dramatic fiction.

There is nothing wrong with all this and it makes news interesting and sometimes even edifying. Adam Curtis is an example of somebody who very blatantly selects and uses dramatic technique in order to shine light and show new perspectives on contemporary history.

The danger is in kidding yourself that it could be any other way and that there is some kind of objective and balanced position which reasonable folk hold - that's how people get manipulated, usually against their interests and sometimes in awful ways.

[mpyne]

> This is logically impossible. Journalists selectively choose what to write about - this is an act of curation. This is further editorialised by the news organisation. What do you think an editor does and why does every news organisation employ tiers of them?

By that logic it is logically impossible to ensure fairness in a judicial system. Should we then just give up and tell judges to do what they want instead of striving for the ideal of due process under the law?

[dreamfactory2]

As far as I know, courts aren't in the business of selecting juicy stories to get an audience to sell ads to (Judge Judy maybe).

Since you bring it up, that a court can't be completely certain is of course one of the main arguments against the death penalty - plenty of faulty convictions that we know of to back that up.

There's a much bigger difference though and that is that news outlets are mostly in private hands and usually quite openly run an editorial line. How would you feel about Murdoch or the Koch bros running the judicial process if you are certain the press are and will remain so even-handed? N.B. I'm not even saying this is necessarily a bad thing wrt journalism, just not to be fooled that it is something else (and which it often purports to be). Any adult should know that it's both foolish and dangerous to believe what you read in the press.

[nitrogen]

A trial is already the telling of two narratives, with the jury deciding which is more compelling.

[mindslight]

> both sides

Because every story has exactly two viewpoints, with the truth somewhere in between?

It's certainly easy to end up thinking that, and that's yet another reason reporting "both sides" is actively harmful.

[Spooky23]

It depends on the issue At hand. If you truly understand an issue, whether there two or twelve sides to a story, you should be able to understand and explain the positions of the major players.

That doesn't mean there is no editorial slant.

What we typically hear on modern mainstream media is reprinting of PR. Regardless of agenda, there is no understanding.

[chc]

It very much does. Stopping the blame at Snowden was a judgment call. They could have said it was the fallout of their own reporting (stopping the buck further down the line), or of the practices that Snowden leaked memos about (stopping the buck further up the line), but instead they chose to point the finger at the middle man. That is judgment.

[MaysonL]

The "View from Nowhere."

http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-question...

[nitrogen]

Starting the headline with "Revelations of spying cost" instead of "Spying costs" is taking a position.