The Objectivity Wars

A battle is underway for the future of journalism and how it’s practiced. The traditional, both-sides, neutral-toned model of reporting and objectivity, seen as a bulwark against a decline in media trust, is often pitted against a more muscular, outspoken journalism in response to a nation, and a profession, under siege.  Newsrooms are divided as never before, often along generational and demographic lines, two camps hardened by the social-media echo chamber.  Is it possible for the two sides to come together? To find a way to co-exist? To redefine what qualifies as great journalism?

This event will be live-streamed. A link will be provided before the event begins.

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RSVP is required. At this event, proof of COVID vaccination is required and masks are encouraged.

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Introduction: Jelani Cobb, dean, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism

Moderator: Kyle Pope, editor and publisher, Columbia Journalism Review

Participants to include:

• Masha Gessen, staff writer, The New Yorker
• David Greenberg, professor of history and of journalism and media studies, Rutgers University
• Wesley Lowery, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who led the Washington Post team behind “Fatal Force,” an unprecedented analysis of fatal police shootings
• Andie Tucher, H. Gordon Garbedian professor of journalism, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism
• Lewis Raven Wallace, co-director of Press On, and the author of The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity