Peter Johnson reports that media executives disagree with Michael Kinsley’s argument that reporters shouldn’t be constrained by the pretense of “objectivity” when they report the news. Kinsley wrote:

Abandoning the pretense of objectivity does not mean abandoning the journalist’s most important obligation, which is factual accuracy. In fact, the practice of opinion journalism brings additional ethical obligations. These can be summarized in two words: intellectual honesty. Are you writing or saying what you really think? Have you tested it against the available counterarguments? Will you stand by an expressed principle in different situations, when it leads to an unpleasing conclusion? Are you open to new evidence or argument that might change your mind? Do you retain at least a tiny, healthy sliver of a doubt about the argument you choose to make?

Unfortunately, none of the media executives quoted in Johnson’s piece address the argument that it’s possible to be factually accurate and intellectually honest and to draw conclusions and make judgments — i.e. express an opinion. Instead, we get platitudes:

“If we are going to continue to be a mass medium, then we need to be a place where people can continue to come and expect to find the truth, regardless of how a person feels about a subject,” says Rick Thames, editor of The Charlotte Observer.
Though “you want to appeal to young readers, you have to conform to standards of editorial principles,” says Marilyn Thompson, editor of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader.

Now there’s an editor with her finger on the pulse of “young readers” — all of whom have blogs on MySpace. They long for “editorial principles.” And more math homework.

Independent bloggers are free to “traffic in unsourced material and street buzz, but news organizations must keep to the facts,” says Michael Clemente, who runs ABC News’ digital media.

Anonymous sources, fake memos, credulous profiles of con-artists — you get the idea?

I agree that it would be nice if news organizations kept to the facts. But what does that have to do with objectivity? Opinion journalists report facts, too. Kinsley’s whole point is that:

All observations are subjective. Writers freed of artificial objectivity can try to determine the whole truth about their subject and then tell it whole to the world. Their “objective” counterparts have to sort their subjective observations into two arbitrary piles: truths that are objective as well, and truths that are just an opinion. That second pile of truths then gets tossed out, or perhaps put in quotes and attributed to someone else. That is a common trick used by objective-style journalists in order to tell their readers what they believe to be true without inciting the wrath of the Objectivity cops.

Kinsley hits it right on the head — objective-style journalists just find other ways to tell the story they want to tell. It’s not a choice between facts and fiction, but between obfuscation and transparency.

There are many reasons that transparency frightens mainstream journalists, but I think one is that so many of them are left-leaning. After witnessing the total marginalization of the Democratic Party, would you want to come out of the closet as a liberal?