Just the facts
Subtitle: how "objectivity" came to define American journalism
By: David T.Z. Mindich.
Publisher: New York University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 200
Subjects: Journalism -- Objectivity -- United States
Description: If American journalism were a religion, then its supreme deity would be "objectivity." Although it has remained the orbital sun of all journalistic ethics, objectivity, until now, has had no biographer. David Mindich here journeys back to the nineteenth century to recover the lost history and meaning of this central tenet of American journalism.

His book draws on a number of high profile cases that show the degree to which journalism and the evolving journalistic commitment to objectivity altered - and in some cases limited - the public's understanding of events and issues. Through this subtle combination of history and cultural criticism, Mindich provides a profound meditation on the structure, promise, and limits of objectivity in the age of cybermedia.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 145-194) and index.
Table of contents: title: Acknowledgments; title: Introduction: objectivity; title: Detachment : the caning of James Gordon Bennett, the Penny Press, and objectivitiy's primordial soup; title: Nonpartisanship : three shades of political journalism; title: The inverted pyramid : Edwin M. Stanton and information control; title: Facticity : science, culture, cholera, and the rise of journalism's "native empiricism," 1832-66; title: Balance : a "slanderous and nasty-minded mulatress," Ida B. Wells, confronts "objectivity in the 1890s; title: Conclusion : thoughts on a post-"objective" profession; title: Notes; title: Bibliographic essay; title: Works cited; title: Index; title: About the author.