The Chair Leg of Truth: Transmetropolitan and objectivity

It's about giving something back to these bastards, there people who we somehow let run our goddamn lives for us. Giving them a taste of what it means to be us. Every law that curbs my basic human freedoms; every lie about the things I care for, every crime committed against me by their politics -- that's what makes me get up and hound these fuckers, and I'll do that until he day I die, or until my brain dries up or something.

That's what we achieve, we show them they're accountable. We show them that just as they try to herd us back into cages of quiet mediocrity, we can chase them back to fucking hell with the truth.

It's the Journalism of Attachment, It's caring about the world you report on. Some people say that's bad journalism. That there should be a detached, cold, unbiased view of the world in our news media.

And if that's what you want, there are security cameras everywhere that you could watch tapes of.

I want to see humans talking about human life, personally. I want to see people who give a shit about the world. I want to see Possessed Journalists! Yes!

-Spider Jerusalem, Transmetropolitan

I recently finished the entire run of Warren Ellis' brilliant Transmetropolitan, and the above passage in particular struck me (about the head and shoulders, repeatedly). 

Transmetropolitan will always occupy a special place in my heart, mainly because I read the first volume several years ago at a really nasty time, a time when I was seriously considering quitting journalism. The story snapped me out of that really, really quickly. In addition to being a damn good tale, the entire work is a reminder of why journalism is vitally, beautifully important.

The last few years in particular have done much damage to the old image of the Objective Journalist, mainly because those who proclaimed themselves as such failed, time and again, in the primary duty of all journalism: find out the truth and tell others about it.

They deserve to be kicked around for that, but there's more to Objectivity than meets the eye. What follows is my scattershot defense of the old bitch, and why journalism needs her just as much as it needs Spider's demon-possessed truth hounds.

True objectivity is impossible. Completely. Totally. Impossible.

Here's the thing. So is True Art. So is Perfect Medicine. So are Machines that Do Not Break.

Doesn't mean we stop trying.

You don't strive for it because you don't have causes, or don't believe. You strive for it because you are an overdeveloped ape-thing with limited faculties and because every story involves a nigh-infinite web of human beings and socio-economic-political-cultural factors.

The problem with embracing "possession" too quickly is that 99% of us journalists aren't Spider Jerusalem, Hunter S. Thompson or Edward R. Murrow. 

For most of us, most of the time, chucking objectivity out the window doesn't mean barreling full-speed ahead with a righteous cause, it means rushing off with assumptions rattling around in one's head before cherry-picking whatever facts happen to suit what the journalist already believes. 

Bad things happen unless such a demon-ridden scribbler is unusually astute or brilliant (read Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail for one that is). Important things, extremely important ones, get missed. The story does not get told the way it should and entire parts of human drama will be missed. 

For all that you'll fall short, there's a huge difference between I didn't try to be remotely objective, fuck these assholes and I made an honest attempt to weed out my own assumptions and let the facts skewer the bastards. Guess which one hurts 'em more?

At its best journalistic objectivity is about calling bullshit wherever you find it, especially when it hurts. It means never taking a source at fact value even when you'd really, really like for what they're saying to be true. It means accepting facts even when they contradict what you originally believed. 

To be fair, there's A LOT of investigation depicted in Transmetropolitan. One of the things I love most is that it captures very well the thrill of the journalistic hunt, that scalpel-layer pulling backs of facts and stories that makes me want to keep writing until they nail my coffin shut. It's addictive -- that part's not fiction at all -- and it allows good journalists to keep their sanity (albeit barely).

All this said, we need our possessed screamers, our yelling columnists and opinionated bastards. We need them because they keep the fire there and add a visceral element that journalism as a whole HAS to have.

But we also need our disciplined thinkers, our reality surgeons. We need people with enough credibility, enough of a reputation for telling the story straight-as-can-be that when they say "Yeah, actually, the screaming guy's right, this bastard is full of it," someone will change their mind.

Comments

[Shay]

A million points for this.
<3 Chair Leg of Truth

I've been meaning to write an essay about this for a while now, but the way I see it, for journalism to survive as a profession, it must embrace it's USP. Namely, professionalism.

Gone are the days that having a journalist in every capital means you're first on the scene. Gone are the days where wide distribution gives you an edge. And soon to be gone are the days where a trusted journalist is the preferred place to leak vital (dis)information. No. This is the lesson bloggers are teaching journalists.
For journalism to remain a viable profession, it needs be about professionalism. Investigative journalism and rigorous fact checking (along with quality writing, obviously) are the reason to buy a newspaper. To put it another way, if I'm going to read shit which uses wikipedia as a first source, I can no longer be seriously expected to pay for it.

I would, however, be willing to pay at least as much as people pay for newspapers today, if it meant there were little Spider Jerusalem's out there causing trouble on my behalf.

[Shay]

p.s. you need a proofreader! ;)