Failed objectivity standard in Media
Paper details:
The title is Failed Objectivity Standard in Media.
The academic motivation: I was inspired by Friedrich Hayek’s theory of dispersed knowledge, although it was initially used in the market price analysis. But knowledge is indeed by its very nature dispersed, so dispersed that nobody claiming to be the mainstream media is capable of, or should, censor information in the name of fact-checking and thereby legitimising its assertions of self-proclaimed objectivity. In this way, when the press accuses populist misinformation, it is essentially opposing the decentralisation of information and supporting the centralisation of information, a move that is fundamentally detrimental to the truly greater digging of facts, and even more detrimental to what the press had hoped for, which was to overcome ignorance. After all, ignorance can only be overcome “not by the acquisition of more knowledge, but by the utilisation of knowledge which is and remains widely dispersed among individuals” (Hayek, 1979 p15).
The background: From The election of Donald Trump to COVID-19, the standards of objectivity in journalism have not only failed to achieve any objectivity but have turned people of different political parties against each other, and even scientific research has become a complete ideological battleground. Under the Trump administration, the objectivity standard has become a virtual signalling of MSM and partisan tool against people with different opinions. In the time of COVID-19, objective reporting has repeatedly misled the public, from initial denials of the dangers of COVID-19 and completely conflicting advice about wearing masks to obscuring information about the source of COVID-19 in order to be anti-Trump. Journalism, which should be fighting to break down communication barriers, has gone from an elitist attitude of building walls among the masses, censoring information and impeding dissemination of information.
To explain: what is the objectivity standard in media? History? Definition? A practice of positivism
To support the main idea: how to prove that the doctrine of objectivity is impossible to achieve? People can’t always get the truth because of the limitation of vision. Being objective journalism, which only cares about facts, hinders spreading the unverified information, is actually building information cocoons to prevent people from having a bigger picture of facts in the future.
Moreover, it has led to polarising public communication; for example, news mechanisms such as fact-checking are poisoning our public discourse.
PS: I attached the proposcgoal so please check it.