However, just within the last couple of days I read an article (it was linked here on HN but immediately flagged) called "Why Progressives Hate Black People", published on substack.
Now, the article itself contained quite a lot of interesting factual information about homelessness in the SF Bay area, some of which I was not aware of (and checked out to verify it.
However, the overall framing and the tone throughout the writing was just a completely unnecessary and even misleading hack that tried to prove a point that doesn't really seem particularly relevant to the story, only the agenda of the author.
Contrast this with reporting in an outlet like the NYT. Complain all you want about the NYT's egregious journalistic errors (and there are many), the overwhelming majority of their reportage does seem to me like a good faith effort to inform the reader about something. It may get the details or even the entire story wrong, but it isn't engaging in outright and unnecessary polemicization on the topic. Yes, the writers and editors still had a point of view, and perhaps even a desired conclusion, but don't feel it necessary to bash you over the head with "LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT THIS! THE HORROR!"
Consequently, even though I continue to not believe in "objective news" or "objective journalism", there is still "hack journalism" and "good faith journalism" (not sure about those terms), and they are not the same.
The next error becomes "If these biased, partisan sources agree then it must be objectively true." Which leads to Raytheon being absolutely above criticism and disagreement with anything they're pushing as in their financial interests as worthy of being totally dismissed as "Being in league and on the payroll of Stalin or Bin Laden or Sadam Hussein or <insert latest evil bastard here>" Rather than being anlyzed on its actual merits or lack therof. In league with the enemy while showing zero evidence of it should be disqualifying as so biased that the source is totally compromised (by sheer idiocy if nothing else).
"Truth and clarity" - this as an ideal IS objectivity. Not some half-baked, half-way position between competing lies which is anything but objectivity.
This post-modern, "there's no such thing as objective reality" and one must take "a position" rather than striving to achieve objectivity is just nonsense and should always have been treated as such and should always be treated as such.
As an example which recently came up in a local (to me, in Seattle) news context: it will soon be legal to ride bikes without a helmet. Unintuitively, this has safety benefits for cyclists. Pointing this out is often met with ridicule. But it’s true, and once known, a person with integrity must reject that intuition.
Striving for objectivity is allowing for ones own bias and acknowledging the validity of facts and arguments that do not support one's own view on the matter. In reporting it is attempting to make one's own view on the matter irrelevant to the content written. Objectivity is removing one's extreme loathing concerning a current or former president to acknowledge facts that show that person in a favourable light and the exact converse. It is not a half way point between two competing arguments among many, many more on the matter. It does not mean if R & D official or semi-official positions agree it must be correct.
It is utterly bizarre how often people don't understand this as a valid point of view or simply want to derail the point for something else they want to argue for.
This is impossible. Part of the determination of what to report is what’s important to even report on in the first place. Omission, or emphasis of stories otherwise reported objectively correctly, is a bias too.
The rest of your comment… I sincerely can’t tell if you’re objecting to anything I said or just generally ranting apropos of nothing above. So I don’t know how to address that.
Yes. A perfect engineering trade-off is impossible. So flipping what. Do you want someone's best work? Do you want someone who is good at the job of engineering design's best work designing a machine you have to trust? Perfection is impossible as you point out.
Objective reality exists. I find those trying to achieve objectivity in their reporting of that objective reality worthwhile. You don't. Good luck.