The Media Needs To Reckon With Objectivity

It's time we reconsider conflicts of interest.

In February, I experienced a heartbreak known by many freelance journalists. I poured my time and energy into reporting a story that I believed in only to have my efforts wasted after an editor’s rejection. Only, my story wasn’t rejected on its merits. The deputy editor denied my pitch because of what they called “conflict of interest.” 

Long before I ever contemplated a career in journalism, I was involved in activism and community organizing: I’ve marched in protests, spoken out against racism, and eventually, joined Seattle’s Green New Deal Oversight Board. As a Black, biracial, cis-presenting man whose present and future are threatened by police brutality and the climate crisis, speaking out and seeking change is a matter of necessity. Little did I know that by advocating to secure a safe future for myself and my community, I’d create conflicts for my future journalism career. 

I turned to freelance journalism in 2022, when I was searching for an escape from a toxic workplace. I’d been writing on the side for years, distilling the perspectives of my community into essays and speeches, and in journalism I saw a way to turn my hobby into a career, giving me a chance to tell stories that change the way people see themselves, the world around them, and their relationship to it.

I had no idea that more traditional editors would perceive my experiences in activism and organizing as liabilities rather than assets and that I would find myself joining a cadre of journalists that has become the subject of raging debates around objectivity and conflicts of interest. Yet, despite being little more than a year into this path, I’ve already had two stories rejected by traditional outlets because of perceived conflicts. 

While these rejections don’t spell the end of my journalism career by any measure, they have sparked in me an interest in the discussion surrounding activism, journalism, objectivity, and conflicts of interest. From what I have seen of this discourse, particularly as it applies to the so-called “activist-journalist,” it’s past time to recognize that objectivity is a myth, and as long as a journalist remains open-minded in the pursuit of the truth, prior and current activism only deepens expertise and broadens perspective.

Following the decline of early newspapers with explicitly partisan stances, objectivity became a dominating principle of journalism in the 1920s as the newspapers that survived the mergers and closures of the day were left seeking to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Though there was contention surrounding the issue throughout the 1960s, the notion of objectivity never died, and the debates subsided before returning in recent years. Despite the cultural changes that took place in the intervening half-century, many traditional outlets still see objectivity as a necessity for credibility. But if the public is more likely to trust journalists than the newsrooms that employ them and more likely to support independent creators with authentic voices, then why is it that outlets aim to restore the public’s trust in media by pushing for journalists to be more objective and, apparently, rejecting any story that has the slightest whiff of conflict of interest?

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My own experience with rejection due to perceived conflicts is by no means novel nor is my perspective about reconsidering this antiquated idea. In the spring of 2020, New York-based investigative journalist Aviva Stahl pitched a story about how the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting sexual assault survivors’ ability to access forensic exams in the emergency departments of New York-area hospitals: a timely, poignant piece that was readily accepted. As Stahl was reporting the story, she asked her editor if she could interview people she volunteered alongside during her time as a survivor advocate – a role she stopped serving in a few years prior to pitching the story. Shortly after that, her editor informed her that they were killing the story because of what they saw as a conflict of interest.

“I hadn’t thought, before I disclosed it, that this would be perceived as a conflict of interest so great that it would threaten my relationship with this editor in this particular instance,” Stahl told me. After all, her role as a volunteer involved neither activism, community organizing, nor policy advocacy. “You’re really just there to help the person make decisions,” Stahl said. “Do they want to get a rape kit? Do they really understand what that means? Do they want to talk to the cops? Do they understand what their options are? Where are they going after? Are they going to disclose anything to a friend or a family member now? Is that something they want? Do they need clothes? Do they need cab fare?”

All these considerations would be difficult to understand without the experience that Stahl brought to the story. That such understanding could be seen as a detriment raised an important question for Stahl: “Would it really be better if a reporter had no understanding at all of what it means to go into an emergency department by yourself after you’ve been through this traumatic experience and navigate all these decisions you have to make?”

She subsequently sold the story to The Appeal and in that iteration, she provided the type of insight and information that would have been difficult to ascertain without personal experience. Stahl is one of many people who has come to understand that lived experiences can deepen the perspective a writer brings to a story by expanding their empathy and tuning them into the nuances at hand.

In farmer and environmental writer Wendell Berry’s 1980 essay, “The Making of a Marginal Farm,” he explained the difference between “having” a subject and “living” it. “To live in the place that is one’s subject is to pass through the surface,” he wrote. “The simplifications of distance and mere observation are thus destroyed. The obsessively regarded reflection is broken and dissolved. One sees that the mirror was a blinder; one can now begin to see where one is.”

When a reporter approaches a story that they have no lived connection to, they are said to bring an outside, objective lens that allows them to question sources and examine the evidence with a critical eye. While their objective lens may be free of sentimental distortions, it is nonetheless riddled with blindspots that both journalist and newsroom will be unaware of. Only lived experience can make one savvy to the nuances.

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“Lived experience is a form of expertise that’s recognized for some, but not for all,” said Lewis Raven Wallace, an author and independent journalist. Wallace was catapulted into a position of public scrutiny after he was fired from American Public Media’s “Marketplace” program for publishing a Medium article that questioned objectivity and neutrality in journalism. His article was neither the first nor the last time Wallace questioned the industry’s status quo. Two years after being fired, Wallace published his first book, The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity. The book’s questions and reflections are rooted in his coming out as queer and trans at a young age and seeing his existence caught up in public debate. When Wallace entered a traditional newsroom for the first time in 2012, he felt as if he had to perform objectivity and disregard any concerns he had.

Despite coming into Chicago Public Media by way of a public fellowship intended to bring interested community organizers into the world of journalism, Wallace was expected to distance himself from the very organizing that had earned him his position. Presented with a choice between career and community work, he had such a strong desire to be a reporter that he felt compelled to accommodate the demands of his superiors, so he could take full advantage of the opportunity he was given. 

“I put activism on the backburner,” Wallace said. “I think a lot of people do that.”

When we witness jurnalists being fired for tweets, reprimanded for acting against racism, and banned from certain beats for speaking out about sexual assault, it’s no surprise that many reporters find themselves setting their activism aside. Even as some newsrooms update their ethics policies to allow reporters to join certain demonstrations so long as they are not also reporting on them, the debate continues about whether someone can be both a journalist and an activist, or whether that involvement forms an irreconcilable conflict of interest.

True conflicts of interest have more to do with what a reporter — or those close to them — stands to gain from the coverage. If the main sources or subjects of a story are a journalist’s close friends or family members, then there may be some genuine roadblocks to producing a compelling, informative story: for instance, they may unconsciously want to cast the person in the best possible light because they are unwilling to risk their relationship with the kind of critical examination that journalism requires. Even more concerning are the conflicts of interest that arise when a journalist has a financial stake in the story, holding shares in a business they are covering for instance, which may cause them to tell the most positive story possible to give their stocks a boost.

While those instances are clear cases of conflict of interest, the lines are less definitive when we consider activism. After all, in most cases, activists are fighting for freedom from the oppression that journalism can help to uncover. When such advocacy is treated as a conflict of interest, it punishes journalists who are already marginalized in society and forces them to stand on the sidelines of issues that directly affect their health and wellbeing. What adds to the absurdity of this treatment is that, even when newsrooms purport to be all about facts, journalism itself is inherently a form of advocacy that raises awareness and informs the public.

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Regardless of any pushback I get from editors, I still firmly believe that my activism makes me a better journalist and that my journalism makes me a better activist. As an activist, I can learn from those impacted by injustice and from those opposing oppression, and as a journalist, I can share their stories. As a journalist, I can investigate the nuances of issues causing inequality, and as an activist, I can work with my community to push for comprehensive solutions.

Ida B. Wells understood better than anyone how in-depth investigative journalism could be a form of advocacy and activism. As Wallace wrote in his book, Wells originally bought into the belief that white-owned newspapers reported the truth, even when it came to the lynchings of Black men and the supposed assaults on white women that prompted the mob violence. But when Wells’s own friend was lynched, she began to question those reports, and based on a firm desire to pursue justice for her community – a desire shared by all activists – Wells set out to uncover the truth behind lynchings. By collecting eyewitness testimonies and digging into any available records to form the basis of her scathing editorials, Wells ushered in the investigative techniques that are central to contemporary journalism.

Wells’s deep influence on journalistic traditions seems to be a far cry from the accusation that activism, advocacy, and a publicly stated perspective will cause a writer to be incapable of uncovering the truth through critical research and reporting. In fact, Wells’s personal attachment to these stories made her more likely to question false narratives and probe ever deeper, a central tenet of good journalism.

Despite the example of journalism-as-advocacy set by Wells, many mainstream and traditional editors still carry the concern that by publicly stating our values, journalists can lose the trust of the public. Yet, as Kerry O’Malley Gleim and Scott R. Stroud – student and faculty researchers, respectively, at the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Media Engagement – point out, “If anything, an argument could be made that journalists being outspoken about their political beliefs only enhances their transparency, rather than pretending to be a blank slate with a press pass.”

The internet offers endless channels to access news. When the time comes to decide which to choose, we must give our audience reasons to believe in us. For those reporters who, like me, straddle the line between journalism and activism, transparency about our values is one way we can practice good faith and ethical journalism by laying our true selves bare. Yes, this may open us up to criticism. But, as the poet Audre Lorde reminds us, “Your silence will not protect you.”

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