ABSTRACT
To be an ‘objective’ reporter-or documentary-maker-means being socialized into obeying certain rituals of naming, describing and framing realities, even if objectivity is self-reflexively posited as an ideal never to be entirely realized in practice. Attempts to document the means by which broadcast journalists, for example, reproduce a professionalized news culture have sought to examine how social relations shape the norms of objective reportage. In what ways, researchers ask, do these institutional norms centre the predispositions and attitudes of white, middle-class male journalists? In other words, why is it usually the case that these journalists’ ‘instinctive’ judgements about the ‘credibility’ or ‘expertise’ of news sources lead to such a small portion of the accessed voices being those of, say, members of ethnic minorities? Similarly, to what extent do male journalists regard their female colleagues as deviating from these norms in their approaches to validating objective truth-claims?
