Taking Sides

When I was a kid, a reporter was supposed to be like a camera. He/she was supposed to snoop, spy, investigate and then to accurately report the truth to the rest of us.

Journalists were supposed to be objective. They weren't supposed to "take sides".

Then, in the 1960’s, American journalists covering the upheavals of the civil rights movement and Vietnam began to believe that they could play a positive role in changing society by influencing the public through their reporting of these issues.

The goal of the reporter subtly slid from being objective, to "making the world better". The term was "advocacy journalism".

...and real journalism has never been the same since.