Hunter S. Thompson and the Death of Objectivity | Hacker News Reader

Hunter S. Thompson and the Death of Objectivity

adrianmouat.com

16 pointsamouat7 comments

About transparency vs objectivity in newspapers and blogs, and how it all harks bark to Gonzo.

Except that Michelle Malkin and LiberalOasis aren't sources of news -- they're commentary. And the editorial pages of traditional papers are very clearly biased in one direction or another, and that bias is obvious to anyone who reads them.

Where there exists a problem is when blogs with a clear bias try to report news, and pollute that reportage with their opinions while claiming to their readers to be covering things objectively.

Yes, good point. Blogs are more analogous to editorials than news stories, and editorials are usually clear in political bias.

To be honest, I wish I'd spent a little longer on the post; I think I lost the thread slightly.

I certainly think any problem with blogs pretending to be objective (which I would argue is the exception rather than the rule) is nowhere near as big a problem as papers claiming to be objective but in reality having an agenda. As papers are usually much more subtle in the ways they bend the truth and less transparent than blogs, they often get away with appearing objective. And of course, people can normally comment on a blog to correct things.

F&L on the Campaign Trail delivered authoritativeness? Now there's news. _The Boys on the Bus_, written during the same campaign period, had something to say.

Which is referenced in the F&L; they were both writers for Rolling Stone. F&L is certainly considered a reference, at least by Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_elec...

Objectivity doesn't exist

Of course it does. Physics and math are objective, for instance.

Our theories about physics and math at not objective. See string theory or recent story about 1969 nytimes retraction of "spaceflight impossible". I'd also argue that objectivity in quantum mechanics doesn't exist.

of course, I was talking about people and journalism, not some vague idea of objectivity

Reply on news.ycombinator.com