Intergalactic Summit

You seem really stressed out and angry, man. Maybe you should consider stopping being a psychopath and do some Mindflood with me instead. I get the best stuff, trust me.

Since when are journalists expected to not take action in any case? I think that one of the main principles of journalism is that the journalists must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience, independently of people - like you here - who want to impose their values on them.

The journalists highest principle and his utmost dedication should be to truth.

Journalists don't need to be impatial, though they are expected to notify us on their partiality: Something Cpt. Jandice Ymladris was doing, so there should be no issue.The idea of 'journalistic objectivity' as the highest principle of journalism is born from a myth: The belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' a distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation. It is a worldview that shouldn't be prioritized unfairly by journalists and certainly not implicitly.

Values are real, though, and Cpt.Ymladirs did a good job on reporting those.

'Journalistic objectivity' taken too far makes journalists and by extension readers passive recipients of news, rather than aggressive analyzers and explainers of it. It distracts us from attaining a deeper understanding of what is true and what is false, especially in respect to morals and ethics. Truths on which we as human beings are supposed to act. Even less than the need to stay impartial, there is a need for jounralists to stay inactive.

Cpt. Ymladris is great at applying the method of participant observation in her journalistic research. A widely embraced scientific method for qualitative research. I hope she stays true to this approach aiming for uncovering the truth about our fellow cultures in New Eden as well as the barbarism of those opposed to civilisation, instead of pulling the sheets over her head and taking refuge to the illusion that Sabikism is just another way of viewing the world that should be presented without expressing information about its moral and ethical valence.

Shame on you, Cpt. Otsiso, for playing the 'integrity card' in what appears to be a shameless attempt to influence a journalist. I find that distressing. No journalist with integrity should bow to this backhanded attempt to push your worldview onto them.

I'm most certainly trying to influence a self-styled journalist towards taking a more objective approach to reporting, rather than a highly subjective one which then becomes nothing more than propaganda for all intents and purposes. My world view doesn't enter into it, nor should that of the press entity in a reporting capacity.

Opinions and viewpoints come in later, after the actual facts have been laid out and the reporting is over and done with. It's the difference between data and interpretation of the data, and once the reporter actively engaged in pushing for one result over another and jumps straight to the interpretation the entire news piece loses value significantly.

Opinion pieces and interpretations of events certainly have their place in the press, but if they are not built on unbiased and factual data gathered during neutral investigation and reporting then they too lose their value and credibility.

This is all too common in clickbaiting media these days, particularly in relation to scientific news, and it's something that is frankly my responsibility as a media consumer and journal author to voice my concerns about. An all too simple solution in this case would be to just let someone else report the facts of the event, then publish her own opinion or interpretation piece. This would satisfy all the requirements of journalistic integrity, while allowing her to act on her conscience.

As this didn't occur, journalistic integrity took quite a hit.

Of course, since the piece was very much in your favor I doubt you'll agree but it'd be interesting to see how you would have reacted if this wasn't the case.

This is quite literally impossible. There is no such thing as purely objective investigation, reporting, or interpretation of data. To claim otherwise is to just be unaware of your own biases.

There is no such thing as objective moral truth. Which means that if a journalist's first duty is to "the truth", then it follows that their duty to morality and ethics will, at best, be secondary.

Now for my part, I don't actually believe that a journalist's duty IS to the truth. If that were the case, they'd be scientists. A journalist's job is to attract readers. A journalist's job is to keep those readers feeling like they're informed about what's going on in the universe. A journalist's job is showbusiness, to narrate the great soap-opera drama that is the real world. Spin is inevitable, objectivity is the attractive lie that news outlets tell their viewers to keep them loyal. There is no such thing as a truly unbiased news outlet - there never has been, and there never will be.

Of course, the most convincing lies are those that the lie-teller is themselves convinced of, so I wouldn't be surprised if your average journalist was outraged at my impugning their honesty.

I do not have survey data of journalists, but anecdotally I would think quite the opposite. Most journalists I have met are quite aware of the nature of their industry.

I am saying that 'striving for objectivity' is a 'personal value and opinion.'

I'll stop there in quoting you: You have no proof for this. It's your personal worldview that this is the case - and in fact it is one that is logically self-defeating:

They can't have a duty, really, to anything, if 'objective moral truth' doesn't exist. Nor ought we then accept the proposition 'There is no such thing as objective moral truth.' in itself.

I agree though, that your assesment of the reality of journalism as show business isn't so far from truth. I'd just disagree that that's what journalism ought to be. (Ought-is dichotomy, hello!) But then for you there is only scientific truth, so at least you are consistent in your view that journalism can't be devoted to truth, if it isn't a science.




No one will stop you to report 'the facts' of the event - or what you deem to be the facts, at least. I'm quite sure your worldview enters in there and you have proven that time and again. You're shamelessly pushing your own worldview here, backhandedly, when you should be honest about it.

If someone reports something I don't agree with, I won't go out of my way to construct a case of breach of 'journalistic integrity'. I'd argue aginst what they said, what their analysis or understanding of the situation was.

As I said: The belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' a distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their segregation. You are quite obviously trying to push your faith in 'facts', your distrust of 'values' and your commitment to the segregation of the two here, as well as trying to force it onto others. It is, in that way, 'propaganda'. Your stressing of values as merely 'personal' shows that you - akin to Cpt. Stitcher - subscribe to the idea that 'there is no objective moral truth'. That's what you're pushing here as well: That is 'propaganda', too. Again, it's your opinion that you push, denying that won't help.

I'm of the opinion that 'objective facts' and 'values' are in truth inextricably linked, that every action has in fact a moral/ethical valence and that we can, in reality, not part one from the other. The distinction that we can and do make there is an analytical, epistemic one, not one that can (or should) be made ontologically.

I have enough tolerance though to not decry a journalist as failing the 'journalistic integrity' if he fails to live up to that worldview of mine. There's enough space for both types of journalists: Those devoted to facts devoid of values and those that see both intertwined and report accordingly. Nor do I insist on any special order in which journalistic pieces are to be published, as I'm not out to advocate the primacy of one jounralistic mode over the other. They are still staying faithful to the principle of reporting truthfully to the best of their abilities.

You on the other hand are not content with coexistence here. You don't give any reason why one should prioritize reporting facts devoid of values over reporting facts as intertwined with values as they naturally come, yet you insist that if one doesn't play as a journalist exactly as you demand, then one looses 'journalistic integrity'.

Distressing doesn't even get close to it.

Duty is not necessarily linked with objective moral truth.

As for the rest of your statement, I largely agree.

The default scientific position is scepticism. The burden of proof is always on the claimant of existence, not on the claimant on nonexistence.

While I abhor the use of absolutes like that which was just used. Stitcher in this case would need to be proven wrong as the case needs to made for objective moral truth existing in the first place.

Edit: Furthermore claiming that Duty cannot exist without objective moral truth is a causation fallacy. As you've neither proved the existence for the causation (in this case; objective moral truth,) nor the requirement that one must proceed the other.

Note: You cannot use the existence of something of the latter to prove the former when the former is claimed as required for the existence of the latter. It is cyclical logic and wrong.