The mainstream press typically espouses and aspires to balanced and objective journalism. The fact that none of us has “God’s eye” and thus could never actually claim to know the exact and objective truth seemingly runs counter to any such professed goal. 

The notion that our culture is a kind of lens through which we see the world mitigates any notion of pure objectivity. For example, likely a traffic cop may see a black motorist with a broken taillight very differently than you or I. His police “culture” might put him on a kind of alert that we just don’t register. Objectively, the taillight is broken; the rest is in each of our respective culturally framed minds.

Journalists are always personally present in their reports. Values like being “balanced” require judgments and choices which inevitably lead a reporter to personally weigh each side of an issue. 

Back in 2015, the New York Times and most mainstream media made an enormous deal out of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, even though her predecessor, Colin Powell, had routinely used his own private server to conduct official government business. The issue was mostly a nothingburger, but it managed to give then-candidate T***p lots of critical cover; to some, it “balanced” the coverage of the candidates. Also, it created a conspiracy-driven cloud of doubt around Clinton that arguably helped lead to her loss. For months, the Times and other media treated the public to few answers, but many public insinuations about Clinton’s honesty and propriety. 

Lastly, the roiling coverage of FBI director James Comey’s unprecedented and unwarranted public criticism of candidate Clinton probably sealed her electoral fate. Soon after the 2015 election, the newly elected president routinely conducted government business on his private cell phone, as did his cabinet-level children. Apparently, that behavior was no longer “scandalous,” and garnered little coverage by our “balanced” media. 

All of us make “editorial” decisions in our lives. The media must get real and stop pretending that they are or ever can be somehow outside of this process. Abstract balance is neither a desirable nor a realizable goal. To approximate a reasonable facsimile of truth, all of us should humbly try to consciously recognize the implied biases in our views, and thus gain better control of what we can only ever claim is, at most, a candid and reasoned reporting of the facts.

John Pace lives in Honesdale, PA.