The Problem with The View from Nowhere and Objectivity in Journalism

Philosopher Thomas Nagel's 1986 book "The View from Nowhere" and the concept itself still have great importance for journalists, as well as almost every other type of content creator of our time. This is my short take on "the view from nowhere" and its effects if a social media platform adopts the approach.

Most people think that "objective" journalism is the best and the most trustworthy form of journalism. Well, not really. Most of the time, stories, or articles that can be labeled as "objective" don't represent the truth. On the contrary, they make the reader more confused, and hide the truth behind a wall of "objectivity" or unnecessarily minor facts. Some of you must think that a journalist shouldn't be biased, shouldn't have a point of view that favours one side of any conflict, should just give the facts and leave the final decision for the truth to the audience. No! All journalists are biased, but their methods shouldn't be. In fact, the best form of journalism is "subjective" and "factual." For example, an environmental journalist who investigates Climate Change doesn't have the luxury to let their audience decide whether Climate Change is real or not. The truth is out there. Climate Change is true. Period. Also, the context of a story matters. Take the Black Lives Matter movement and the media coverage of the events after the police brutally killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others. When the media frames racial justice movements in the context of riots and violence, the more likely it is that white audiences are going to react negatively to not just the members who are engaging in this behaviour, but the entire movement. This type of coverage veils the social injustice, causality, or correlation with the violent behaviour that is the brutal and excessive use of force by the members of the police department, as well as other unlawful misconducts by government officials. Is the way the media reacts to these events factual? Yes. Is it objective? Yeah, to a certain degree. Does it represent the truth? Far from it. It just gives the fact that "some of the protesters" conduct violent acts. And that's it. This is for journalists and journalism, of course. But, what happens when a social media platform like Facebook becomes an advocate of "the view from nowhere?"

I recently read Facebook leaks show Mark Zuckerberg defending his decisions to angry employees by Casey Newton in The Verge that inspired me to write this piece. I highly recommend you read it if you haven't already. The article, sort of, brings up the former question. Newton reports how "the view from nowhere" caused a dispute between high ranking Facebook officials and its employees (who are mostly liberals). Also, the article shows that the approach might have unwanted results such as the incompatibility of the platform's "neutrality" with "racial progress." Even though Facebook's director of public policy for trust and safety, Neil Potts, says that they "want to produce a product that is good for our community, and I don’t think that is incompatible with civil rights," Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of the company, let a hostile post shared by the US President Donald Trump stay.

Another article in Vanity Fair by Nick Bilton argues that Facebook became the social media home of the right because of Zuckerberg's indifferent attitude, so to say "neutrality." Twitter labelled Trump's post as "glorifying violence," Snapchat's CEO, Evan Spiegel, decided not to promote anything from Trump, saying "we simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform." There are different journalists who report how Facebook transformed into a right-wing propaganda machine. Kevin Roose argues in The New York Times that the "silent majority" of the [alt-]right may not be silent at all because of all the engagement that pro-Trump content has on Facebook according to CrowdTangle, a tool that's owned by Facebook and shows popular content on the platform.

Facebook adopted it as one of its policies because they don't want to be an "arbiter of truth" which is understandable. But, if this policy does more harm than good, such as promoting violence, hate speech, etc., maybe we should focus more on Karl Popper's "benevolent despotism" and "paradox of tolerance."

So, who benefits from "the view from nowhere?" Is it a handy approach to uncover the truth? Obviously not. Is "the view from nowhere" the most trustworthy approach to journalism? Personally, I disdain it. I think a good journalist should take sides but shouldn't fail at fact-checking.