Avoid bias. Avoid opinions. As a newswriter, journalists owe it to society to be truthful. Yet around campus and around the world, controversy brews and waits to be boiled over by angry civilians and politicians.
So with sensitive topics, how does a writer keep their opinions out? How do they remain unbiased and only present the facts? And does rearranging the facts count as truth in a news story?
Today, one of the headlines for The Boston Globe speaks about how Massachusetts deports more immigrants for civil violations than for serious ones:
Federal immigration officials are deporting more immigrants in Massachusetts for civil violations than for serious crimes under a fingerprint-sharing program that expanded from Boston to the rest of the state last year.
The lead has no bias, though the writer must have had some sort of opinion on the issue! It doesn't show. The next paragraph strays from bias, too.
As of December, only 45.6 percent of the 768 immigrants deported through the Secure Communities program since 2008 had criminal records, far below the national average of 76 percent and lower than states such as Arizona, New York, and Texas.
Reporter Maria Sacchetti did her research. And she presented it fairly, with numbers. The passage is almost without bias. The only part I question is far below the national average. Even so, I couldn't keep out all my bias as well as she does here. The issue is sensitive. Conservatives and liberals are in battle about who to send out and who to keep in. Obama, I've heard, wants to help immigrant children. Conservatives don't always agree.
The most important thing for me to work on as a writer right now is to keep out my opinions. Reading stronger examples helps.
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