That’s because attempting to eliminate bias does nothing to eliminate the source of bias, which is not bias itself.

The source of all bias is ego. Eliminating bias keeps ego intact and, therefore, enables bias to continue.

If you eliminate the ego, however, then you also eliminate bias.

Impartial not partial (inclined to favor one party more than the other) or biased (to give a settled and often prejudiced outlook to) : treating or affecting all equally

I’ve seen it stated elsewhere, and echoed here, that you cannot eliminate bias. To pretend otherwise is a fools game.

You can attempt, however, to be both impartial and objective, and frankly, the football analogy is off. An impartial referee calls a fair game because he favors neither Team A nor Team B. An objective referee calls a fair game according to the rulebook because they do not allow their own judgement about the fairness or legitimacy of the rules to enter into the game.

A referee that swallows his whistle because he is a Packers fan is not impartial. A referee that won’t call a minor hand check defensive pass interference because they disagree with the rule is not being objective.

A paper that puts every piece of negative coverage for the GOP at the top of page 1 but buries bad news for the Democrats is not being impartial. It isn’t as simple as that, however, because if the editorial board of said paper believes in socialist economic policy and so wishes to see the democrats in a good light does the same thing, but is not objective.

In my opinion, the fact-based news and the accuracy therein, should not be subject to value judgements. Save that for the editorial pages. I mean, at this point, most of the mainstream media have moved so far away from objective news coverage that you cannot even be sure what is accurate and what is complete fabrication swallowed whole because the media purveyors WANT IT to be true. The TNR Scott Beauchamp episode is a perfect example of a lack of objectivity taken to an extreme.

BTW, there should be minimal value judgements. The editor doesn’t decide to cover corruption because HE thinks it’s bad, he does so because it is an objective FACT that corruption is bad. As soon as we start thinking that the editors are the keepers of information based on what THEY think is good or bad (and it seems that is already the case) then objectivity is out of the question. The fact that Jeff thinks this way is pretty telling, actually.

http://www.amazon.com/Can-Trust-BBC-Robin-Aitken/dp/0826494277/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6932139-0900836?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190125164&sr=8-1

…doesn’t seem to agree with all your steaming about the BBC’s legally enforced impartiality!

By the way… great post Jeff.

While it’s true that everyone carries some kind of bias, they can make an effort to ensure that that bias does not colour their reporting.

I think a good analogy is a referee in a football match. The referee doesn’t see everything, and may make mistakes. He can’t be objective, but he is expected to be impartial, i.e. apply the rules of the game fairly to both sides.

If a referree can be impartial, then so can a news reporter.

The more accurate you are, the more impartial you are. The more open you are, the more impartial you are.

I happen to believe that the more open the BBC is about how it makes editorial decisions, the more impartial it will be, and will seen to be.

Impartiality will no longer be about handing down judgements. It will be about moderating fairly and transparently a news offer that is becoming more networked.

“objectivity” is not the same as “impartiality”.

The BBC is required to be impartial by law. If you look at the BBC’s editorial guidelines they state:

“In practice, our commitment to impartiality means:

* we seek to provide a properly balanced service consisting of a wide range of subject matter and views broadcast over an appropriate time scale across all our output. We take particular care when dealing with political or industrial controversy or major matters relating to current public policy.
* we strive to reflect a wide range of opinion and explore a range and conflict of views so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or under represented.
* we exercise our editorial freedom to produce content about any subject, at any point on the spectrum of debate as long as there are good editorial reasons for doing so.
* we can explore or report on a specific aspect of an issue or provide an opportunity for a single view to be expressed, but in doing so we do not misrepresent opposing views. They may also require a right of reply.
* we must ensure we avoid bias or an imbalance of views on controversial subjects.
* the approach to, and tone of, BBC stories must always reflect our editorial values. Presenters, reporters and correspondents are the public face and voice of the BBC, they can have a significant impact on the perceptions of our impartiality.
* our journalists and presenters, including those in news and current affairs, may provide professional judgments but may not express personal opinions on matters of public policy or political or industrial controversy. Our audiences should not be able to tell from BBC programmes or other BBC output the personal views of our journalists and presenters on such matters.
* we offer artists, writers and entertainers scope for individual expression in drama, arts and entertainment and we seek to reflect a wide range of talent and perspective.
* we will sometimes need to report on or interview people whose views may cause serious offence to many in our audiences. We must be convinced, after appropriate referral, that a clear public interest outweighs the possible offence.
* we must rigorously test contributors expressing contentious views during an interview whilst giving them a fair chance to set out their full response to our questions.
* we should not automatically assume that academics and journalists from other organisations are impartial and make it clear to our audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint.”

Some blog commenters would pull towards the level of debate recently exemplified by Hamas vs Fatah… vehemence unconstrained by intellectual standards will take public discourse down in a bidding war for ‘purity’.

I believe that liberal ideas do not have to be concealed under impartiality, but standards that incorporate quality of argument are necessary.

However I do think a national institution like the BBC has some additional responsiblity to maintain intellectual diversity and avoid groupthink - responsibilities that it has not handled very well in recent years. But that may be more an argument against having such a national institution in the first place.

This ties in nicely with two recent posts by Steve Outing on coverage of climate change: http://snipurl.com/1qqey and http://snipurl.com/1qqez.

I’ll be blogging more about this later on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits and my own blog Contentious.com. But thanks for tackling this debate.

- Amy Gahran