6 Quotes & Sayings By Michael Schudson

Michael Schudson is Professor of Journalism at Columbia University. He was formerly the Director of the New York Times Project for Excellence in Journalism, where he served as the director of the study, "News & American Democracy." His articles on journalism and democracy have appeared in leading journals including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Public Interest, and American Prospect. Schudson has also written extensively for The New Yorker, New York Newsday, and Vanity Fair. His books include The Good News about the News (with Steve Bichel), The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age (with David Carr), Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World (with Herbert Gans), and The Press Effect: How News Media Reflect Values, Shape Policies, and Change Societies (with Eric Alterman).

1
Objectivity, in this sense, means that a person's statements about the world can be trusted if they are submitted to established rules deemed legitimate by a professional community. Facts here are not aspects of the world, but consensually validated statements about it. Michael Schudson
2
But into the first decades of the twentieth century, even at the New York Times, it was uncommon for journalists to see a sharp divide between facts and values. Yet the belief in objectivity is just this: the belief that one can and should separate facts from values. Facts, in this view, are assertions about the world open to independent validation. They stand beyond the distorting influences of any individual's personal preferences. Values, in this view, are an individual's conscious or unconscious preferences for what the world should be; they are seen as ultimately subjective and so without legitimate claim on other people. The belief in objectivity is a faith in "facts, " a distrust of "values, " and a commitment to their segregation. Michael Schudson
3
It should be apparent that the belief in objectivity in journalism, as in other professions, is not just a claim about what kind of knowledge is reliable. It is also a moral philosophy, a declaration of what kind of thinking one should engage in, in making moral decisions. It is, moreover, a political commitment, for it provides a guide to what groups one should acknowledge as relevant audiences for judging one's own thoughts and acts. Michael Schudson
4
Objectivity is a peculiar demand to make of institutions which, as business corporations, are dedicated first of all to economic survival. It is a peculiar demand to make of institutions which often, by tradition or explicit credo, are political organs. It is a peculiar demand to make of editors and reporters who have none of the professional apparatus which, for doctors or lawyers or scientists, is supposed to guarantee objectivity. Michael Schudson
5
Buy me and you will overcome the anxieties I have just reminded you of. Michael Schudson