Kirk Caraway from the Nevada Appeal took a well-deserved shot at the coverage of President Bush's budget this week, but confused "fairness" and "balance" with objectivity again. Look, it's this simple - a commitment to objectivity means a commitment to the truth, as supported by objective facts. If one side gets the hell beat out of them because of it, that's not unfair - that's deserved.

I've dissed the Columbia Journalism Review previously, so I should give them credit when it's due for a good column by Doug McCollam in its most recent issue. McCollam takes the position that reporters can be committed to objectivity while maintaining their traditional constitutional role of standing in opposition to those holding the seat of power. He says:

"From the founding, the American press was meant to be oppositional. There is a reason Thomas Jefferson, no stranger to bad press coverage, said that if forced to choose, he’d rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers. In the aftermath of the Afghan riots, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the microphones at the Pentagon to admonish that, in these dangerous times, the press should be “very careful” about what it said and printed. Of course, the opposite is true. In turbulent times, the press should be more outspoken, not less. Rumsfeld’s comment recalls another old legal theory, that freedom of speech does not extend to falsely yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. Journalists should never be false about anything. But for too many in the wake of September 11, 2001, the whole world has become a crowded theater, and the press is too often being told to ignore the gathering smoke. It shouldn’t."

The principle of journalistic objectivity was never meant to be synonymous with the concept of balance, but with the standard of evidence. A good piece of journalism is like a courtroom trial in miniature. Both sides get their say, and evidence is presented in support -- but there should be a verdict. It's the reporter's and editor's job to play the prosecutor, give the defense their chance to present -- but also to draw the conclusion based on the evidence, and to lead the reader/viewer to understand how that conclusion is reached. It's a harder job than running competing statements - it requires investigation beyond the press releases.

Once that responsibility toward objective investigation is completed, the meaning derived from analysis of that investigation is legitimately reported - in fact, one could argue it must be reported. And if that leads to embarassment of those occupying positions of power - well, good job, Journalist. That's not bias. That's truth.

Me and WorldNetDaily on the same page? Scary. But I can't help it, I think Bob Kohn got this one right. Well, till he runs off the rails a bit at the end. And the Columbia Journalism Review should be ashamed. Brent Cunningham blows it when he says objectivity "excuses lazy reporting." The opposite is true; objectivity requires aggressive reporting. Objectivity is not balace, or fairness -- objectivity is dedication to the truth, no matter what your bias going into a story.

Webster defines objectivity as "being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought." In other words, what is, not what I think it is. I realize the philosophical simplicity of such a statement would hardly be considered very modern, or post-modern, or post, post modern. But the belief in truth over relativism is the only thing that makes journalism, and subsequently democracy, practicable. If we cannot know the truth in any instance, then everything is a lie. Karl Rove's paradise.

For those who like to wrestle with philosophy -- an extremely interesting analysis of the relationship between rhetoric, journalism and society on a blog called Rhetorica.net. While addressing what he calls a "field theory of journalism," Dr. Andrew Cline gives a great summary of the ideas behind objective journalism's structure. He does so to set up an analysis of what he calls "civic journalism" -- I haven't read his ideas on this yet, so I can't comment. But my response to his "epistemology of journalism" rings true to me. I still can't believe that the effort to find verifiable truth and communicate that truth will not be as valuable to citizens trying to make informed decisions as a cacaphony of biased opinion.