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Reality check please, everyone

Posted by GPP on August 15, 2003

In Reply to: Reality check please posted by Kate on August 14, 2003

: : : : : : : : Hi,

: : : : : : : : Could anyone help me with the clause in brackets? Thank you very much.

: : : : : : : : For some feminists seeking to uphold objectivity as a journalistic ideal, [the problem is one of male norms, values and beliefs being allowed to subjectively distort what really took place.]

: : : : : : : That's a tough one. I don't know what it means either and I was a "feminist journalist." Whatever THAT means.

: : : : : : : From Merriam-Webster online:

: : : : : : : Subjective -- modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background.

: : : : : : : Objective -- expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.

: : : : : : : The journalistic ideal is that the journalist reports the facts objectively. But it would be difficult for a feminist journalist not to try and correct distortion caused by this being a male dominated world.

: : : : : : : Like it would be difficult for a Jewish journalist to write with total objectivity about the Holocaust?
: : : : : : :

: : : : : :
: : : : : : So only feminist journalists care for objectivity! All males distort their perception of what actually took place to fit in with their "norms". Whilst I suppose that everybody recalls what they witnessed through their mind and I suppose that people use stereotypes or archetypes to handle understanding to some degree, to suggest that women are blessedly free from subjectivity is complete rubbish.

: : : : : : The answer to avoiding interpretation is not to ask for opinion about the event, simply to ask for an account of what the senses revealed to be happening at the time, so far as the witness can recall.

: : : : : : I hope that now the ludicrous statement has been understood, you feel free to label it risible.

: : : : : So, the women don't accept what the men say?

: : : : What I took it to mean was that the "feminist journalists" have to leave objectivity behind a bit and turn their feminist magnifying glass on things since everything is so distorted by the male-dominated world. Otherwise they don't get a clear picture of issues or whatever.

: : : : It was a muddled paragraph and I feel sorry for anyone who has to translate it.

: : : ESC, I'm stunned. I would have SWORN you were male. I suppose one can't really help imagining the real people masquerading here behind pseudonyms, without benefit of sensory input. Talk about objectivity!

: :
: : ESC - without intending to cause offence - posting lacks vocal tone and body language, so apologies for one dimenionality of this - is this forum about words, or is it general discussion?
: : I know there is considerable overlap, but frankly I had enough of "perspectives" when I did sociology at degree level. Marxist perspective this, feminist perspective that etc ad nauseum. There is no single "feminist" perspective and if you use a magnifying glass that in itself is a distortion - magnifying only works through the bending of light and that "bending" is what happens to objective fact when is is paraded as being within some ideological truth. We all process our perceptions individually, not en bloc as men or women. Writing such as that referred to above is an insult to journalistic integrity - it is advocating rhetoric and "spin" to promote an agenda, not factual presentation.

: Well said....now off to coffee.

I'm probably chiming in too late here to even be noticed, but I needed to mull this over a little. Lewis, you're absolutely right about journalism, of course, but I think you're being unfair to ESC. I interpret both of her posts as explication of the original phrase in question, rather than espousing her own views. We've seen many questions posted recently about muddled writing produced by muddled minds, and this is simply another example. We can't really say we'll only address texts that we don't disagree with.

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