News organizations, at least here in the United States, operate with all sorts of assumptions underpinning their foundations. But it gets uncomfortable once you review them. I believe more news orgs should identify these.
Out of a reporting project, I found myself considering what those core beliefs are for Technical.ly. To identify these assumptions, we’re forced to address: what is the line between a newsroom becoming partisan and a newsroom defending justice? My divide is between the *tactics* to reach a given goal, and the goal itself, which might be understood as that organization’s *”basic beliefs.”*
From my perspective, a news organization today should hold firmly those *beliefs* about the world and the communities it serves. These can and likely should range by the organization. As an exercise, I wrote a few that I believe are basic beliefs of my own news org:
- Representative democracy is our preferred form of government;
- A free press that challenges its community in pursuit of the most true view of that community is at times inconvenient but beneficial;
- Race is an immoral predictor for health and economic outcomes, and should be removed;
- Invention is a means for solving collective problems and should be rewarded;
- Economic mobility makes us all better off, and entrepreneurship and career opportunities help;
- Group-based income inequality correlates to conflict and so should therefore be reduced;
- Violence is rarely a justified act and so should therefore be reduced, etc.
News organizations should defend fiercely their core beliefs — and individual employees, including newsroom staff, should be allowed to do the same. This is why when we had a newsroom conversation, it felt easy to encourage Technical.ly’s D.C. reporter to protest personally and loudly at a Black Lives Matter protest.
In contrast, the *tactics* to reach those goals are where I view newsrooms must tread most cautiously. In tactics, we find politics and partisanship; it is easy to fall in love with one set of tactics and then therefore become a political actor. Debating and lobbying for tactics is not inherently bad — activists and advocates are crucial, but I believe that’s where journalistic approach ought not venture. I believe there are exceptions but news organizations should use those exceptions rarely.
A good example? Minimum wage research is mixed. Whether a federal $15 minimum wage will reduce income inequality is contested. In contrast, there’s more consensus around growing local minimum wages to fit prevailing wages, and we at Technical.ly have guardedly written in a more favorable light to a local increase than a federal one.