Stentorian

\sten-TOR-ee-uhn\, adjective:

Extremely loud.

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There exists an intrinsic flaw in much of journalism. Journalism is one of those fields (akin to history and science) where the best of it is created from objectivity. Especially like history, where an accurate retelling of the past is essential to its integrity, and depends upon the objectivity of its presenter, journalism is tasked with retelling on a more ephemeral basis. Due to the nature of the material (being in the present) and its affect on culture and the future, journalism has weight attached to its ability to alter the mood, decisions and wisdom of society. It is often vaguely demanded of journalism to be objective. But how is it possible?

Reporting is done in three basic forms: Television, Newspapers and the Internet. The first two are necessarily owned by someone or something. A newspaper might be owned by a sole person who holds him or herself to high standards of objectivity, or the newspaper might be owned by a large corporation which, as it grew, became less concerned with objectivity and more concerned with a mixture of in-house interest and public predilection. It is not a leap to assume the former is most likely the only one to reach a large and nationally impacting audience.

The power of media and journalism is defined by how large its audience can be. When newspapers were idiosyncratic and local, their potential for objectivity was greater, but their power of audience was much smaller. Therefore, a large problem with journalism in television and newspapers is that its persuasive power is far more often than not (if not, entirely) made possible through large and financially motivated cooperations, whose prerogative is not objectivity. The more blanketed a television broadcast or a newspaper syndication becomes, the more necessary it is for that proliferation to occur under a cooperation with higher interests.

Thus exists the intrinsic flaw involved in 'mass' media. It is far more difficult these days to attempt objective reporting when speaking out in a local neighborhood without some overarching conglomerate sensitive to and censoring certain matters is unlikely. Objectivity in journalism, like its application in history, philosophy and science, thrives on a lack of authority and censorship. So where could objective journalism, on a mass scale, survive?

While it remains an enterprise undermining all of the aforementioned forms of media, the Internet will be the ultimate expression of democracy. Its audience is unlimited--only publicity that is in short reserve, as an online newspaper that holds objectivity in high regard might be worthy of perusal, but virtually unknown. It is in this playground that, should the foothold of major cooperations be unable to wrap their fingers around, classical objective journalism could rise again. It has certainly already begun again, with the proliferation of blogs, which, while they may not always or even often be objective, provide a breadth of opinion far more representative of the American mood than that on the television stations or in the newspaper columns owned by conglomerates. The Internet is the ultimate tool of democracy--an, as far as I can tell so far, effective mode of uncensored interpersonal communication completely embodying the standards of free speech that allow objectivity to be found among seas of bias.

Now, what I may be naive to in this discussion is how television and newspaper reporting differs in other countries (as my knowledge extends little beyond America). I do not envision it being very much different, whether through such media requiring wealthy conglomerations to spread or through governmental control, but it is certainly possible that countries outside of America might have certain widely read newspapers or widely watched television shows that prize objectivity more than most thrive (as it's a gross overstatement to say all American shows or columns are loyal to a higher head).

It's my hope that the Internet will undermine financial (or political) control of information. It has not done a bad job so far--it's wholly possible that someone experiencing a genocide or something of the sort might not be able to take that information to a newspaper, where a cooperation above them has stake in the genocide, but could walk into an internet cafe (this depends on the country, of course, the power requires internet access--a potentially dangerous loophole) and post that information on the web, cutting out the middleman for the unfiltered information. While it may contain a bias in one direction or another, I truly believe there's no better way to present information than uncensored--even if that information is a subjective retelling.

We should demand of ourselves objectivity, but is detrimental to democracy to demand only what we think to be objective information from each other. Instead, as I think was intended in the Constitution, unfiltered free speech, like in matters of philosophy, journalism, history and science, is always conducive to a collective search for truth. To censor anything, whether it is by indirect influence or conglomerate control does nothing more than serve an often-times essentially moral-less higher power that works regardless of personal or professional morals. We owe it to ourselves not to put our information through this sieve, should it taint our observations. Proliferate the internet--the last (so far) free realm of information.