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30 Sep 09

Transparency is the new objectivity

David Weinberger tells us that transparency now carries a lot of the importance that used to be laid on objectivity.

www.hyperorg.com/...parency-is-the-new-objectivity - Preview

objectivity transparency journalism David Weinberger

Outside of the realm of science, objectivity is discredited these days as anything but an aspiration, and even that aspiration is looking pretty sketchy. The problem with objectivity is that it tries to show what the world looks like from no particular point of view, which is like wondering what something looks like in the dark.
What we used to believe because we thought the author was objective we now believe because we can see through the author’s writings to the sources and values that brought her to that position. Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to reliability the way objectivity used to.
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- At the edges of knowledge — in the analysis and contextualization that journalists nowadays tell us is their real value — we want, need, can have, and expect transparency. Transparency puts within the report itself a way for us to see what assumptions and values may have shaped it, and lets us see the arguments that the report resolved one way and not another. Transparency — the embedded ability to see through the published draft — often gives us more reason to believe a report than the claim of objectivity did.
- Objectivity without transparency increasingly will look like arrogance. And then foolishness. Why should we trust what one person — with the best of intentions — insists is true when we instead could have a web of evidence, ideas, and argument?

Further notes on objectivity, transparency, and links

Ryan Sholin offers some thoughts about transparency and objectivity.

ryansholin.com/...ctivity-transparency-and-links - Preview

transparency objectivity Ryan Sholin David Weinberger Dan Gillmor show your work

If transparency is the new objectivity, it has to go deeper than disclosing conflicts of interest. Transparency on the Web is all about disclosing how and where you found the information you’re passing on to the next person, or readers, or audience, or community. It’s at the heart of the blogosphere’s “via” links. It’s at the heart of sourcing the facts of your story.

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