For various reasons, people in the journalism business aren't generally willing to admit what everyone on the outside can see: Personal bias is endemic to journalism and is something that should always be something to be filtered out as much as possible, especially in the political realm.
Thankfully one journalism pundit who is honest enough to admit to the truth of the foregoing statement is one Butch Ward, a distinguished fellow at the Poynter Institute. In a blog entry entitled "How Safe Is Your Newsroom?," Ward writes:
Several years ago during a leadership seminar at Poynter, one of the participants approached me during a break.
"Can I tell you something about myself?" she asked.
"Sure," I said.
"I'm a conservative," she said as we walked past the library and the rows of books about journalism –- good, bad and ugly.
"And I'm the only one in my newsroom."
She paused, and before I could respond, added: "And none of the others know it. I wouldn't dare tell them. I'd never hear the end of it."
How about your newsroom? Would this editor feel comfortable revealing her political ideology to you and your colleagues?
Are you sure? [...]Journalists don't challenge each other nearly enough.
Yes, editors raise concerns: They question a story's facts or structure, a video's lack of context or quality. Sometimes they even question the overall direction of a reporter's coverage -- does it favor a particular group or point of view?
But too often missing are the other voices in the room -- the reporters, photographers, artists, online producers and others who have questions about their colleagues' work and keep those concerns to themselves (or at best, share them with one another during a lunchtime gripe session).
What does it take to create an atmosphere in which everyone in the newsroom can feel comfortable enough with their views -- or in their skin -- to speak out on behalf of fairness, accuracy, better journalism?
Boardman's right: We don't get that atmosphere by engaging in partisan outbursts. But I can't help thinking what an opportunity was squandered in that conservative editor's newsroom because she felt too insecure to say to her colleagues, "Listen, I have a problem with this story. I happen to share this person's point of view, and I can help you understand it. I can help you avoid faulty assumptions, if you want to do that."
I guess those exchanges can take place in a newsroom where no one knows what anyone else believes; but I'm not sure I buy the advantage in pretending we have no biases. Can we identify that middle ground between overt politicking and hiding our biases, in order to utilize the expertise our biases and interests might have driven us to obtain?
Can we master an admittedly difficult balancing act: how to bring our whole selves -- biases and all -- to the office, and put them to good use on behalf of better journalism?
To do that, a newsroom leader needs to start with an honest assessment of the room's diversity: not just how much diversity exists, whether it be political, racial, ethnic, lifestyle, whatever, but how safe it is for people to express their differences.
