ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by analyzing the development of the concept of objectivity in American journalism since the 1830s, bringing to light the different technological, professional, commercial, and political factors that have driven its development. It discusses the concept of objectivity, a concept which has held sway over journalism’s norms and ethics since the end of the nineteenth century. From the 1950s and 1960s onwards, two parallel concepts of objectivity have coexisted side-by-side: one that considers objectivity as a biased doctrine and another that considers it a doctrine of credibility. The use of the inverted pyramid style of writing is a good example of such a linguistic device meant to distinguish a journalist-fact approach to reality from other non-journalistic genres. The chapter analyzes the development of ethical reflection in photojournalism, which allows us to understand why and how the concept of objectivity has been applied to press photography.
