Objectivity: Why it is Important and How it Can be Realised in Media Practice

Abstract

This study interrogates the growing tendency to assume the impossibility of journalistic objectivity. Specifically, it sieves through the controversies and articulates the way forward. The study adopts a Discourse Analysis approach and anchors its contentions on the Correspondence and Coherence theories. The analysis concludes that journalistic objectivity is distinctively a news function. And that it is not only desirable but possible and realisable if approached within a defined context. Based on this framework, the study provides a standard for achieving journalistic objectivity in media practice.