journalists wish to practice their non-neutral journalism responsibly, then what norms should they follow? What aims? What norms would help to ensure that non-neutral or engaged journalism serves the public, publishing accurate material that is not sheer partisanship? What distinguishes the ethical engaged journalist from the unethical engaged journalist?
It can seem that the answer to a polluted public sphere is for journalists to follow existing norms for responsible journalism. Or, they could avoid doing non-neutral journalism and regard the engaged writers online as not “really” journalists but advocates. When the first online journalism appeared in the late 1900s and early 2000s, with its opinions and perspectives, this attitude prevailed. Many professional journalists dismissed it as subjective blogging, and not journalism at all. This conservative resistance to new journalism is unhelpful today as non-neutral journalism grows.
As for falling back on existing norms, the problem is that journalism ethics today is fragmented. Journalists lack a consensus on what ethics is appropriate for digital, global media, and the new media create ethical issues never foreseen by the founders of journalism ethics. Also, there is not a lot of rigorous, comprehensive ethics material on non-neutral journalism to fall back on. One reason is that the ethics of non-neutral journalism was under-developed in the previous century. Professional ethics focused on how reporters should cover events in a detached and fair manner. Non-neutral writing, sometimes lumped into the category of “opinion journalism,” was a subjective enterprise which did not admit to a detailed ethic.17
This imbalance is being addressed today as ethicists and journalism associations articulate guidelines for practice, such as how to use social media.18 But this is still a work in progress. We do not have a mature, systematic ethic for non-neutral or engaged journalism, let alone a consensus on what such an ethic should look like.
To respond to the ethical challenges, journalism ethics should reflect on three levels:
1 Reform of the moral ideology of journalism:19 How should we re-conceive journalism’s ethical role and aims in a global media era?
2 Reform of the “content” of journalism ethics: What new guidelines and practices are needed to guide responsible journalism, and to oppose anti-democratic groups?
3 Reform of media institutions and structures: How can journalists, citizens, and civic groups, locally and globally, come together to detox the public sphere, improve mechanisms of media accountability, and put pressure on unethical media practitioners?
This chapter works on level (1), the philosophical level. It proposes a way to conceptualize journalism as both engaged and objective. I call it democratically engaged journalism. It is a “third way” between partisan and neutral journalism. Once this moral ideology is constructed, one can get to work on levels (2) and (3).
The chapter defines democratically engaged journalism, using a continuum of kinds of journalism. Then it considers possible objections. It concludes by identifying four duties of democratically engaged journalism.
Section 1: A Continuum of Journalism
Journalism is the publication of reports, analysis, and commentary on events and issues of public interest and significance, using whatever forms of media are available. Anyone can commit “acts of journalism” sporadically or regularly, and do so ethically or unethically. One does not have to be a professional journalist in the mainstream news media.
What is engaged journalism? Engaged journalism is journalism that is motivated, fully or in large part, to promote certain ideas, causes, leaders, policies, or reforms.
Engaged and Disengaged
Our default psychological approach to the world is to be engaged with it in some manner. The etymology of “engagement” revolves around three senses: being occupied with something; being committed to something; and finding something interesting. We are occupied when we perform a role or job. Teachers are engaged in classrooms. Being occupied can also mean being engrossed in some activity, e.g., learning to paint watercolors. Engagement is commitment when we pursue some complex, usually difficult to reach, goal, e.g., to commit oneself to marriage, or to devote one’s life to helping street people. One is occupied and committed. We are engaged with something as entertaining when something grabs our attention, such as an engaging play. For this chapter, engaged means being occupied with, and committed to, social goals or practices.
To be disengaged means not to be occupied, committed, or fully involved with the world or some aspect of the world. This disengagement can take on two forms: global and local.
Global disengagement occurs when a person withdraws from agency and society, often caused by a decline in interest in the world. Seriously depressed people experience a nihilism of values, and can lose interest in the issues that roil social life. Some people, depressed or not, may become an ironic spectator on life’s passing show, or become a hermit. There is also local disengagement which means that a person is not engaged in this issue, or that activity, or these groups, at this time.
Aside from depression or a lack of interest, what other reasons might there be to adopt the attitude of disengagement? One reason is to set aside the pressures of life, temporarily, to do intellectual work, e.g., to retreat to my study to create a theory. Another reason is to ensure rigorous, critical inquiry. This is the motive behind the many objective methods of scientific and humanistic inquiry into nature or society. Disengagement means standing back from beliefs and goals, the better to judge them. This same call for disengagement occurs in the professions, where judges, teachers, and public servants are cautioned to make objective judgments based on facts and logic, without the influence of conflicts of interest.
As noted, journalistic disengagement in the early 1900s came to be called news objectivity. To be disengaged meant the reporter should place a distance between themselves and their biases and beliefs. They do not use reporting to advance their personal interests. They maintain intellectual and editorial independence from the world outside—audiences, advertisers, donors, and political pressure groups. They are neutral and report just the facts.
Engaged journalism is defined in contrast to disengaged journalism. It is not neutral and its reports include “more” than the facts, such as interpretation, opinion, advocacy, or polemical argument. Moreover, it does not place a “wall” of independence between journalists and external groups. Some forms of engaged journalism think journalists should get closer to public groups, the better to understand their needs or causes.
Where does engaged journalism fit with respect to other forms of journalism? There are many ways to categorize journalisms: by form of technology (e.g., broadcasting, online, print newspaper), by size (global, national, or local news media), by their political perspective (liberal, conservative, anarchist, far-right), or by their types of audiences (young, rural, urban, college-educated). No category system is uniquely correct or best. It depends on your purpose.
Figure 2.1 ranges from the strongly disengaged and neutral pole to the strongly engaged pole. The continuum contains three broad categories of journalism.
Figure 2.1 A Continuum of Engagement.
Disengaged journalism: The goal is factual and fair informing, without taking a position or a strong perspective, without engaging in persuasive rhetoric or seeking to participate with citizens in some social project. The most obvious example is neutral reporting already discussed. But it is not limited to neutral reporting.
