Jay Rosen loihe lausumaan Economistin blogihaastattelussa seuraavanlaisen viisauksen politiikan toimittamisen ehkä perimmäisestä problematiikasta:

Who’s going to win? What’s the strategy? Is it working? Focusing on those things helps advertise the political innocence of the press because ”who’s winning?” is not an ideological question. By repeatedly asking it journalists underline that theirs is not an ideological profession. But how does this pattern help voters make a decision? Should they vote for the candidate with the best strategy?

My own view is that journalists should describe the world in a way that helps us participate in political life. That is what they are ”for”. But too often they position us as savvy analysts of a scene we are encouraged to view from a certain distance, as if we were spectators to our own democracy, or clever manipulators of our fellow citizens

Tästä tulee heti mieleen eräs journalismintutkimuksen klassikoista, eli Gaye Tuchmanin Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity (1972):

To journalists, like social scientists, the term ”objectivity” stands as a bulwark between themselves and critics. Attacked for a controversial presentation of ”facts”, newspapermen invoke their objectivity almost the way a Mediterranean peasant might wear a clove of garlic around his neck to ward off evil spirits.

Matti Apunenhan kirjoitti Hesarissa äskettäin melko lailla samasta aiheesta.