Checking out Adrienne Russell’s review of Charlie Beckett‘s excellent SuperMedia, I came across this nugget:

[CB:] “To have validity as journalism, rather than simple testimony, news communication has to attain a degree of authority. People have to trust it as a version of reality that aspires to objectivity, fairness, accuracy, and thoroughness. It might be valuable without that quality but it is not journalism.”

The discussion of this distinction does not come around to examining the ways that the procedures and values constructed in order to accommodate this aspiration “to objectivity fairness, accuracy, and thoroughness” create a series of biases, including bias in favor of the status quo and bureaucratically credible sources (Glasser), which in turn excludes the public from the process of storytelling and can contribute to apathy and distrust (Carey, Schudson).

And we haven’t found a way of incentivizing a participatory public, or admitting that lack of interest in public affairs is not a manifestation of apathy but a positive choice when faced with more attractive alternatives.