Saturday, November 1, 2003

Finding "Objectivity" at Google.com Google is increasingly reminding me of Mr. Dooley's description of "what the newspaper does for us..." The answer, in a word, "ivrything..." It's a search engine, a newspaper, a discussion group (via Usenet), a library (both Usenet and its Web cache), a translator and, among other things, a phone book. (Have you noticed that it's a reverse-directory too? Put your phone number or address in the Google search box and watch the results.) The thing I just stumbled on today is the "define" feature -- Google as dictionary... But not your average dictionary. In response to a blogging colleague's raising the topic of "journalists' objectivity" too late in a meeting for me to come up with more than a mumbled sentence of reply, I decided to see what Google would say in response to "define: objectivity" -- the results were intriguing. The lead definition came from an Oregon philosophy professor's 1999 glossary for a course on Eastern Religions, one that will never be mistaken for something in a journalism textbook. After years of reading the dense prose of the Boston Herald, I needed a couple of passes to decipher the professor's definition, but when I did it was great food for thought: "A striving to draw near to the object of investigation at the point where all relevant perspectives on it intersect..." That sure beats some students' idea that they are going to be able to "tell both sides" of a story (as if there were only two), and do it from a safe distance. The journalistic debate over the word "objectivity" -- whether it describes a practical goal, a technique, an attitude or an excuse -- came farther down on Google's hit list. (Just how objective is Google's transcendental search algorithm?) However, the results did include two sources I might have chosen myself, one a book-length historical analysis of the concept (Just the Facts: How "Objectivity" Came to Define American Journalism), the other a suggestion that wiser use of quantitative "precision journalism" techniques can bring a different kind of objectivity to civic reporting. Now if Google would just come up with a feature called: "Find me time to read all this..." 6:44:22 PM

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