A talk to a business audience about the idea of objectivity in journalism is changing in the digital era. It explains the dangers to public understanding of a shift to relativism but also shows how a new understanding of the value of objectivity is being created by organisations such as the BBC and Buzzfeed and the lessons for strategic communicators.

1. The death of objectivity:
implications for strategy-makers
Prof Charlie Beckett
Polis, LSE
Windsor Debates, Sept 2015

2. Journalistic Objectivity:
it’s a made-up idea
“The belief in objectivity is a faith in 'facts,' a
distrust in 'values,' and a commitment to their
segregation."
(Michael Schudson)

3. The promise of participation
“We are in the age of answer back, better still
we are in the age in which “we the people”
have their greatest opportunity ever to
influence the information agenda…But above
all we are in the age of more. More potential
to get it right, to get it fast, to get it in depth.”
Jon Snow, Presenter, Channel 4 News
Cudlipp Lecture, 2012

4. Digital disrupters

5. How did we get from this…

6. …to this?

7. #EuroMaidan: Power to the people?

8. Social Media Tells The Story

9. Social Media Tells The Story

10. Social Media Tells The Story

11. Social Media Tells The Story

12. The effect on public opinion & policy

13. The effect on public opinion & policy
• News cycle much faster – stories framed
instantly and agenda shaped more quickly
• Verification – people want filters but foster
fakes
• Multiple news – people seek trusted sources
in the face of over-abundance of information
including peer referrals
• Personalised – people want to chose news to
suit them: bubbles, solidarity, identity

14. Global networked news war

15. Media is a battleground

16. Plurality or propaganda?

17. Paradox of plurality
Information over-load and source multiplicity
leads to:
• Confusion: ‘what’s true?’
• Cynicism and conspiracy: ‘nothing is true’
• Relativism: ‘everything is true’
• Subjectivity: ‘what I feel is true’

19. The battle for objectivity:
BBC
• Public service broadcaster retaining core value
of the aspiration to objectivity – a USP for
digital age but becoming more open,
collaborative and interactive

20. Changing from inside

21. Changing from inside

22. The battle for objectivity:
BBC
• Public service broadcaster retaining core value
of the aspiration to objectivity – a USP for
digital age but becoming more open,
collaborative and interactive, reinventing itself
as the world’s broadcaster from the world not
to the world

23. The battle for objectivity
Buzzfeed: from mews to news

24. Buzzfeed: from mews to news

25. This matters to all strategic
communicators
• Organisations need to establish their voice
• Transparency is the online currency of trust
• Interactivity is key to engagement
• Objectivity is still an aspiration that can act as
a signal for trust and a sustainable relationship
• Objectivity must be combined with openness

26. Connect to me:
c.h.beckett@lse.ac.uk
@CharlieBeckett
Charles Beckett on Facebook
Polis director’s blog:
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/