Impartiality and Objectivity 

Hannah Arendt reminds us of the importance of impartiality in history, journalism, and scholarship. She also insists on the distinction between impartiality and objectivity. For Arendt, impartiality is not the same as objectivity in the sense of a logically foundational judgment. Objectivity, if it is understood as limiting oneself to simply telling the facts, is not only impossible, because facts always need to be interpreted. Every selection of facts is, as a selection, partial. Objectivity is also inadequate to express a human world, one that always is told and understood as a story from a particular perspective. 

Impartiality offers a different and non-scientific ideal of knowing the world based in the idea of representative or enlarged thinking.  When I think impartially, “I form an opinion by considering a given issue from different viewpoints, by making present to my mind the standpoints of those who are absent…. The very quality of an opinion, as of a judgment, depends upon the degree of its impartiality.”  Arendt describes impartiality through the example of Homer:  “Impartiality, and with it all true historiography, came into the world when Homer decided to sing of the Trojans no less than those of the Achaeans, and to praise the glory of Hector no less than the greatness of Achilles.” Homeric impartiality is founded upon the experiential insight “that the world we have in common is usually regarded from an infinite number of different standpoints, to which correspond the most diverse points of view…. Greeks learned to understand—not to understand one another as individual persons, but to look upon the same world from one another’s standpoint, to see the same in very different and frequently opposing aspects.”

Arendt’s distinction between impartiality and objectivity is too often overlooked. Bret Stephens writes about the crisis of confidence in journalism. He discusses a recent essay by Leonard Downie Jr. in the Washington Post, arguing that “newsrooms must set aside journalistic objectivity because a new generation of journalists “believe that pursuing objectivity can lead to false balance or misleading ‘both-sides-ism.’” He added, “they feel it negates many of their own identities, life experiences and cultural contexts, keeping them from pursuing truth in their work.”” Downie’s essay is a popular version of a longer report “Beyond Objectivity” that  he co-authored with Andrew Heyward based on interviews with 75 leading journalists. The key suggestion of the report is that journalism must “move beyond accuracy to truth.” Downie and Heyward imagine a truth that is higher than objectivity and yet very much the opposite of impartiality. Against this, Stephens rightly argues that journalists are not in the business of higher  truths; In arguing that journalists should be in the business of objectivity, however, Stephens commits himself to objectivity as telling simply the facts.  Stephens writes: 

we are not in the “truth” business, at least not the sort with a capital “T.” Our job is to collect and present relevant facts and good evidence. Beyond that, truth quickly becomes a matter of personal interpretation, “lived experience,” moral judgments and other subjective considerations that affect all journalists but that should not frame their coverage. The only place where nonobjective truth can play a valuable role in the news media is in the Opinion section, which at least is honest and transparent about the ideological assumptions and aims of its commentary. If Downie and Heyward had only wanted more of that, I’d be all for it.
The core business of journalism is collecting and distributing information. Doing this requires virtues of inquisitiveness, independence, open-mindedness, critical thinking and doggedness in the service of factual accuracy, timeliness and comprehensiveness. It also serves the vital interests of democracy by providing the public with the raw materials it needs to shape intelligent opinion and effective policy. This may be less romantic than the pursuit of “truth,” but we could regain a lot of trust by paring down our mission to simple facts.
Third, the fact that objectivity is hard to put into practice does nothing to invalidate it as a desirable goal. On the contrary, the standard of objectivity is of immense help to editors trying to keep reporters from putting their own spin on things or excluding people and arguments they dislike from coverage. What Downie and Heyward dismiss in their report as “both-sides-ism” is, in reality, a crucial way to build trust with audiences, particularly in a country as diverse as America. It gives a platform to multiple views. And it shows faith that people can come to intelligent conclusions of their own.