Impartiality is often considered a key journalistic principle, one that is essential to ensuring that information is delivered in a fair and accurate manner. You will need to familiarise yourself with the concept of impartiality and how it works in practice if you want to be a trusted journalist.
What Is Impartiality?
At its most basic, impartiality is presenting a story without showing bias to any particular side and without allowing the journalist’s personal opinion to colour their reporting. It ensures that all perspectives are represented so the audience has the information they need to make up their own minds.
How Do You Ensure Impartiality?
To ensure impartiality, journalists need freedom to report on any relevant subject of interest, no matter how controversial, rather than being provided restrictive directions. They should obtain a range of perspectives from experts and impacted individuals. Conflicts of interest should be disclosed, and clear distinctions should be made between fact and opinion. Providers such as //schoolofjournalism.co.uk/ should ensure that an understanding of impartiality is an important part of studying for a journalism degree.
Impartiality Versus Balance
Whilst presenting differing views is an important part of impartial journalism, this does not mean giving equal time to both sides. You do not need to give the same amount of weight to an unevidenced conspiracy theory as you do matters of widely accepted historical or scientific fact.
Responsible journalism informs the public about important matters in a fair and impartial manner, providing facts and clearly distinguishing different opinions so the audience can decide their value for themselves.