What the Angel Reese debate teaches us about journalistic objectivity
By Jacqueline Nkhonjera
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images
Can journalists be objective?
A recent New York Times column posed this question and invited readers to engage in discussion around restoring trust in the media. In considering my own response to the question over the last few weeks, I thought about consistently warped portrayals of Black families in news media, for instance, or the ways in which Western news outlets reduced the Rwandan genocide to a ‘tribal war’ in 1994. I thought about the weaponization of critical race theory in American media and most recently: I thought about Angel Reese.
Last week’s NCAA Women’s National Championship between LSU and Iowa drew a record setting 9.9 million views. During the highly anticipated game, LSU forward Angel Reese pointed at her ring finger with assumed reference to a pending championship ring and made a “you can’t see me” gesture seemingly directed at LSU player Caitlin Clark.
Sports journalist Jose de Jesus Ortiz and ESPN host Keith Olbermann called Reese “classless” and an “idiot” for making gestures on the court. Two games earlier, Clark made the same gesture and was left uncriticized. In fact, she was praised by wrestler John Cena, who popularized the gesture.
The game sparked social media debate that ignited conversations about racial double standards and the privilege tethered to Clark’s social position as a white woman. What is made clear from these discussions is the ways in which identical things can be perceived differently by different people. The journalistic commentary on the game made this glaringly evident.
Interrogating the golden rule
This raises questions about the golden rule of objectivity in journalism and the ways that it masks issues such as racism and sexism in storytelling. It’s important for us to consider the following questions:
Who’s objectivity is considered objective?
Who and what is rendered invisible by the “objective”?
And what can we do about it?
Journalism is not an objective practice. That’s not always a bad thing. We need to acknowledge that journalistic reporting is influenced by the speaking position of the journalist. In doing so, journalists have the capacity to engage in storytelling that stays true to journalistic values while remaining honest about their abilities to tell an objective truth. When we do that: we create room for critical engagement with news sources and, by extension, decentralize the perspectives of powerful people. Also, news rooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ have the capacity to build trust with audiences—a pressing issue of our time.
A mystical source of knowledge
Knowledge production does not take place within a vacuum. Yet, it’s conventional for it to be presented as though it does. Richard Salent—Former president of CBS News in the 60s and 70s—made the following remark famous: “Our reporters do not cover stories from their point of view. They are presenting them from nobody’s point of view”.
Information that comes from nowhere has, in American journalism, long been associated with a high standard of professionalism and truth-telling. Professor of Journalism, Matthew Pressman, moves us to consider the idea that people who see objectivity as a barrier to truth-telling are misunderstanding its requirements. He insists that it doesn’t prevent journalists from making judgments about the news; it simply asks that those judgments be based on dispassionate analysis.
However, this view does not take seriously the idea that knowledge without a body becomes knowledge that comes from a mystical place—a type of knowledge that has many destinations but no source. All ideas have a source and if they don’t, that source has either been hidden or normalized.
“Information that comes from nowhere has, in American journalism, long been associated with a high standard of professionalism and truth-telling.”
My difference of opinion is rooted in a belief that texts have many meanings and the role of interpretation in thought production should not be underestimated. Sharing experiences, understanding and learning always entails acts of interpretation. At its most basic level, communication is a subjective practice. This interpretation of one’s own experiences does not make the knowledge less real. Instead, it expands the margins of possibility for what are considered to be acceptable ways of knowing. Knowledge that is interpreted and potentially ‘incomplete’ is valuable still.
With predominantly white male journalists producing the work that has historically been valued in journalistic spaces, interpretations of the world in journalistic storytelling can often be rooted in white masculinity even if they are not identified as such at face value. Acknowledging one’s positionality is powerful in its promotion of accountability. My speaking position as an African Black woman who has acquired an education in the West informs the way that I read a text and the way that I produce knowledge, for instance. My thoughts are shaped by my worldview and experiences. Those who engage with them will further shape that knowledge according to theirs.
Seeking new rules
By acknowledging the relationship between the speaker and the subject, the knowledge produced in journalistic works is given the potential to strive not for universality but, instead, particularity. Practices that promote accountability and extend the privilege of particularity to marginalized bodies have the potential to transform storytelling practices across the world. Although the racism and sexism that informed differences in reporting on Reese and Clark’s hand gestures ignited a country-wide conversation, there are many flawed representations of marginalized people that go unnoticed or unacknowledged.
It’s important to note that scholars and journalists have suggested vital solutions to the question of objectivity in journalism, particularly as it relates to social and political issues. USC Annenberg Professor Gabriel Kahn aptly states that transparency is the new objectivity. He moves us to consider how sharing reporting processes with audiences can work as a seal of authenticity.
Others in the field contend that it’s crucial for us to diversify newsrooms and encourage journalists to seek truths in their work. Ultimately, I think a candid acknowledgement of the faults of objective storytelling is an important place to start. By embracing the humanity of the craft, we might just find a new rule in the process; more golden and genuine than before.
Jacqueline Nkhonjera is a Dual Masters candidate in Global Media and Communications at the University of Southern California and the London School of Economics.