Objectivity, News and Healthcare

After the healthcare summit last week, these were the leading headlines on the three major news websites:

FOX: GOP comes out swinging.
CNN: Spirited but civil debate at healthcare summit.
MSNBC: Tempers flair at Obama's healthcare summit.

Each of those titles is really very different. It isn't even that one is 'liberal' and one 'conservative' necessarily or that two are stark opposites of each other. Each network just reached an entirely different conclusion as to how to summarize the summit in a one line title.

In a way, this isn't all bad, as for all news to report the same thing seriously risks discourse and debate being lost in our culture. Having a culture with a singularity around any field of knowledge is a serious impediment to progress and democracy. However, many people do watch one of those networks (or any news source, for that matter) as objective fact. But asking networks to be 100% objective is probably an impossible task as even TV anchors unconsciously give subtle clues to their own personal feelings in their posture, tone of voice and hand gestures. So the problem is not really the lack of subjectivity, but rather that these networks and news services claim to be objective (Fair & Balanced, anyone?) and therefore many people watch them expecting an objective analysis and don't place what they hear in a larger context.

There is nothing wrong with getting news from any of these sources. However, everything must be placed within the proper context of who is doing the reporting. This is another way that context is incredibly important in our society in terms of understanding information that it is presented with. To hear a soundbite and know whether it came from MSNBC or Fox News helps people understand better what they are hearing.

I can only keep my fingers crossed that one day Fox's 'Fair & Balanced' would change to 'Leading Conservative Provider of News.' Does anyone really believe after looking into the issue that Fox is fair and balanced? I hope not. And admitting a political inclination is not a bad thing at all. It's honest. Internet news sources seem to get quickly pinned as liberal or conservative and thus readers can try to place what they read in the proper political and cultural context, and we need to encourage networks to be honest and help people place what is reported on in a better frame of mind.