NEUTRALITY

ADITI CHAUHAN

Neutrality means reporting all sides of an issue without favouring any one of them.The concept of “truth” is central to journalism, and audiences expect journalists to provide truthful accounts and analyses of recent developments.In order to combat allegations of bias, journalists often claim to be neutral and to offer “a view from nowhere” — that is, to offer a perspective without a position or that takes no side. A common way to enact that claim is to try to occupy a middle ground by simply capturing and broadcasting opposing viewpoints, and trying to give equal weight to competing sides of an issue. Crucially, such attempts take care to not convey the journalist’s own opinion on a matter.This proclivity toward neutrality and balance is, itself, a form of bias. This is not to say that such an approach to doing journalism is bad but rather that it represents a predisposition toward a particular way of presenting news.There are downsides to that approach, though. In trying to be neutral and balanced, a journalist may promote false balance by assigning equal blame or acclaim when one side is more culpable or deserving of it. For example, by taking the position that “all politicians lie” or that “both sides share blame” in order to appear neutral, a journalist may obfuscate the fact that some politicians make more verifiably false claims than others, or that one side is more responsible for an outcome (e.g., by being less willing to negotiate a compromise). Put another way, journalists distort reality when promoting a false balance and they thus do a disservice to truth — and to news audiences.