The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond

Jay Newman is a professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. His
most recently published works are Biblical Religion and Family Values,
Inauthentic Culture and Its Philosophical Critics, and Religion and
Technology.

This volume is flawed due to incoherence. It combines at least two
distinct projects that, while related, would more prudently have been
developed in different books. The author, Stephen J.A. Ward of the
University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism, has received
extensive training in academic philosophy and endeavours here to show
how it can be applied to journalism studies. His study is a contribution
to the sizable literature on journalistic objectivity and aspires to
cast new light on this ideal by drawing on analytical epistemology,
philosophy of science, and other areas in academic philosophy. Though he
relates his philosophical discussions to journalism issues, he devotes
disproportionate attention to philosophical issues concerning
objectivity per se; most journalism students will find such
philosophical forays arcane and irrelevant to their practical concerns.

The first part of the volume includes a historical overview of some
major philosophical contributions to the understanding of objectivity as
such; this extended essay is only very indirectly relevant to
journalists’ concerns. The middle chapters offer a historical overview
of the development of “journalism ethics” from the 17th century to
the present. Ward believes this overview is illuminated by the
philosophical framework of earlier chapters, but most of this material
is only marginally relevant to the earlier discussions, and it is
accessible to readers with no interest in the academic philosophical
issues. A final chapter elaborates a concept of “pragmatic
objectivity” and argues that it offers journalists an appropriate
ethical theory for carrying on their work.

In undertaking to “reform” journalism ethics by elaborating a
suitable ideal of journalistic objectivity, Ward devotes excessive
attention to esoteric philosophical concerns and insufficient attention
to classical and recent literature in the philosophy of journalism.
Philosophy of journalism has developed to the point where a critical
mass of literature has emerged, as evidenced by Elliot D. Cohen’s
important bibliography. Ward makes some astute and valuable
observations, but the work would have been more coherent, readable, and
accessible if he had been more concerned with showing the relevance of
philosophy than with showing off his postgraduate education in
philosophy.