| Objectivity is supposed to be
the key to good journalism and writers are required to free themselves from
bias as far as possible. However, objectivity and subjectivity, like love,
family and fairness, are terms that mean different things to different people
and common sense frequently isn't. The hard news reporter is the one whose
objectivity is most frequently insisted on, and invariably questioned, as
the whole Gulf business has shown. War reporting, indeed, is particularly
difficult as the journalist needs to understand how much of the information
on offer is fact and not propaganda as well as how much needs to be withheld
from general consumption for the sake of not endangering lives. Reports
on crimes, prior to verdicts, should equally confine themselves to what
can be generally released in the way of facts to avoid prejudicing a jury.
A general objectivity is also supposedly required when writing about hobbies,
art or domestic arrangements, and this is, perhaps, where the impartial
ideal shows up its worst flaws. We simultaneously revere the concept of
the remote, observant, utterly-without-prejudice journalist, and consume
considerable amounts of rank propaganda without noticing it. Yet when writers
lay their cards on the table, they are often condemned for being "too close
to the subject" and invited to take a step or two back. Yet where, exactly,
is the writer stepping back to? The objective position, the median line,
the correct perception point does exist, yet it depends squarely on perceiving
the objective, correct view as that of a male Caucasian heterosexual agnostic-lapsed-Christian.
This is the ideal "person", the supposed norm. When books, newspapers, articles
or essays address themselves to an unspecified "general" reader, it's Straight
Boy Whitey they have in mind. Women, gays and people of a background other
than Caucasian come under the heading of special interests, despite the
fact that heterosexual white men form a minority group when weighed against
the non-white, non-het, non-penile rest and, indeed, may be a smaller group
than straight white women. We've come a fair old way over the past thirty
or forty years, it's true. If you're not white and/or you don't have a dick,
you are no longer automatically confined to writing about stuff the "objective"
reader doesn't care about. However, even if the subject matter is of passionate
importance to you, you're not supposed to show it if you want to be taken
seriously. While men's football is frequent front-page news, women's football
is perceived as unlikely to interest the "general reader" until one of the
star players shags a man or gets her tits out for a photographer. Despite
the substantial numbers of Jews, humanists, Sikhs, Muslims, Pagans, Hindus,
Buddhists and atheists in the country, shedloads of time, attention and
newsprint is devoted to where a vicar sticks his dick and why it allegedly
matters. Current concern about the state of the music industry ignores the
huge sales of bhangra, dancehall, soca and folk music, which do not feature
on the charts because they are not produced and distributed by the mainstream
entertainment companies and are therefore "not important". To read almost
any magazine, apart from the most specifically narrow-focused titles for
hobbyists (arts and crafts, caravanning, pet-breeding, DIY or cookery) is
to enter a world of determined social pressure on the reader to conform.
The alleged objective view required by editors of such titles is nothing
of the sort. What is required is a reaffirmation of who "we" are and, in
natural counterpoint, who "they" are. The "we" of this world are heterosexual
and serially monogamous, with a vague faith in areas of the supernatural
and an obsession with celebrities as well as a conviction that little cannot
be made better by means of judicious shopping. We are incapable of dressing
ourselves, feeding ourselves or getting what we want sexually without the
input of a celebrity of some kind. "We", in fact, are passive consumers
and the objectivity required of anyone discussing any way of life other
than passive consumption is an ability to make the other way of life sound
as uninviting, ridiculous and difficult as possible. Whether the "objective"
writer is describing a battle reinactment, a swingers' party, a chess tournament
or a morris dancing display, much has to be made of the allegedly strange
clothing that all the participants wear, and the fact that not all of them
look like models. Writers of such pieces always conclude with a reaffirmation
of the happy scribe's distance from these outsiders, the relief that the
interaction with them is over and a reassurance that, as long as you don't
take up any such strange behaviour you, the reader, will retain your sex
appeal and approved status within the "normal" world. These days the message
is likely to be reinforced further by means of an expert opinion: some counsellor
or psychologist or agony aunt will be wheeled in to pronounce on the feature
subjects' fears of intimacy, eccentricity and undoubted need for counselling.
Naturally, no one is objective enough to remember that counsellors can practice
without any formal qualifications and that psychiatry, even when practised
for years by the fully qualified, remains an imprecise science. It's pretty
clear that, big business and government wishes not withstanding, human beings
are a mixed bunch with a wide range of priorities. It's about time more
media portrayed more variety in value systems and celebrated the substantial
scale of human diversity, rather than trying to enforce this particular
narrow set of standards. Who the fuck wants to be normal, anyway? |