Final Word from Friday, October 4, 2002
Objectivity in journalism is relative, because the mere choice of what to write about is itself subjective. What's more, all writers or editors have their own view of what's important, no matter how much they try to be objective. Our publisher, Erik Best, spoke to a group of businesspeople in Prague last week and heard criticism afterwards from an attendee who thought the Final Word was too American. Despite our efforts to be objective, Best acknowledged, the fact of being American inevitably shows through. We are what we are. Meanwhile, the shutdown earlier this week of the U.S.-funded Czech broadcast of Radio Free Europe prompted lavish praise for the station. Martin Komárek of MF Dnes referred to RFE's broadcasts to Communist Czechoslovakia as the "naked truth." But truth, too, is relative. Discerning listeners and readers won't be blinded by any single version of it, whether American or otherwise.