Objectivity and Neutrality in Emerging Media Landscape

Donaldson Tan

The author is the Editor of New Asia Republic, a group blog that provides commentaries on science, society, management and the political economy, encompassing the liberal-libertarian spectrum.

A rising dragon in the blogosphere

A rising dragon in the blogosphere

Recently, I was told to observe certain boundaries to maintain my objectivity as a blogger. Naturally, I was enraged because I don’t believe in objectivity, and for that matter, partisan neutrality as well.

Sure, there is a lot of hype on how New Media (NM) imposes competitive pressure on the Mainstream Media (MSM) to be more objective and partisan-neutral by simply being an alternative source of information, but we must not conflate NM and MSM as if they share the same objectives in the first place.

Being profit-driven, competition makes MSM more sensitive to readers’ expectations. If readers’ expectations tend towards objective and partisan-neutral reporting, then naturally MSM has to align itself to these expectations in order to recapture audiences and to regain trust from its readers. This is true for both print-based and digital MSM entities.

Yet there is no homogeneity among readers’ expectations. If not, there is no room for tabloids such as Xin Min and The New Paper. The fact is sensationalism sells. Pandering to sensationalism is also considered as aligning to readers’ expectation. Clearly, objectivity and neutrality are not the holy grail but rather means of targeting a particular segment of readers.

So what is objectivity and partisan-neutrality? Do they apply to NM as well? Sociologist Michael Schudson of Columbia University’s School of Journalism defines objectivity as the “faith in ‘facts,’ a distrust in ‘values,’ and a commitment to their segregation.” On the other hand, partisan-neutrality calls for non-biased factual reporting about political parties in terms of scope, depth and frequency.

As argued in previous paragraphs, the application of objectivity and partisan-neutrality is for targeting of a particular segment of readers. Therefore, objectivity and partisan-neutrality are not universal qualities that are applicable to MSM and NM. The qualities a media entity would adopt are the ones that are relevant to its targeted segment of readers.

New Asia Republic (NAR) is an example of a NM entity. It is a group blog that provides commentaries on science, society, management and the political economy, encompassing the liberal-libertarian spectrum. As editor, I can tell you confidently that the targeted reader segments are liberal and libertarian factions based overseas and in Singapore.

As such, NAR has a mixed ideological flavour which is not divorced from the liberal and libertarian value systems and time to time our writers exhibit sympathy towards liberal and libertarian political parties. Lacking a profit incentive, our motivation is guided by our collective values rather than the vulnerability to readers’ expectations. Unless our values resonate with the reader, he would not be subscribing to our content too. No coercion or peer pressure is at play here.

It is not hard to see that the effect of competition between MSM and NM are asymmetrical on the 2 different genres of media. This is due to difference in objectives and targeting of reader segment. More competition between MSM and NM would not lead to widespread adoption of objectivity and partisan-neutrality but rather a higher degree of product differentiation in the media landscape.

As more and more NM entities emerge to cater to a variety of value systems, it is increasingly difficult for MSM to deny acknowledgement that there is diversity in readers’ preferences. Given the profit incentive of MSM, the convergence of MSM and NM is inevitable. After all, NM is ahead in establishing reader base for new niches and in order for MSM to quickly gain new ground, MSM would acquire some NM entities.

Does anyone still remember SPH’s spectacular purchase of Hardware Zone at S$7.1M in 2006?