Being Objective With a Personal Perspective

Abstract

This article examines what objectivity means to 15 environmental journalists at two Chinese newspapers and how this value guides their practices. It reveals that although objectivity is central to their journalistic ethos, the participants see it as ethical to organise reports within a framework arising from their personal judgments of news events. The appropriation and particular definition of the American journalistic norm of objectivity increases the participants' political safety and justifies them in playing their perceived role as guardians of society and educators. In so doing, they negotiate with other social actors and consolidate their cultural authority over defining reality.