Explaining a little more about my research methodology, writing process, and publication goals.
In the spring of 2020, at Ohio University, I took a journalism ethics course. The combination of the intensity of the course and the start of the pandemic sent me into a monthslong spiral about my career and the possibility of making mistakes, but I think some of the most helpful advice that our professor gave us was to be as open and transparent as possible when we have to make these tough decisions.
Even as someone who trained in journalism for upward of seven years, I have a complicated relationship with traditional U.S. American conceptions of journalistic objectivity. I don’t believe it’s possible for us to be entirely objective, but I do think that reporters (and researchers, and archivists, and storytellers) have a responsibility to their audience to tell the entire truth as fairly and accurately as possible.
I also know that even though the entire truth may include a variety of perspectives, we don’t need to give them all equal weight –– I do not think an ethical reporter would give equal column inches to a virologist and someone who believes vaccines cause Autism, for example, in a story about the global pandemic. But I also recognize that objectivity itself is a tenet of white supremacy and that so much of American journalistic objectivity means seeming “objective” through the lens of the people running newsrooms and platforms (usually white men, as evidenced by this year’s FCC report on diversity in TV station ownership).
We saw this during the 2020 wave of Black Lives Matter protests, for example: major media outlets used passive voice (“officer-involved shooting”) or took police reports unquestioned, trying so hard not to provoke controversy that their reporting was biased in favor of the status quo (white supremacy and police brutality).
But all of this presents a number of interesting challenges; namely, in terms of my work, how do we balance ideas of scientific expertise with maintaining an environment of tolerance and acceptance? Is it even fair for me to label certain ideas as intolerant when I aim to portray as much of the truth as I possibly can?
In this work especially, where I aim to challenge ideas about expertise and credibility as part of my historical examination of science and activism, how do we balance different kinds of credibility, like lived experience versus formal medical education? I mentioned above the fact that an ethical reporter might not give the same column inches or airtime to an anti-vaccine group and a virologist –– but when so much of my work is about the risks involved with taking science uncritically, how can I do the same?
I think that the best way for me to do this is to acknowledge different kinds of experience and credibility. I’m in the process of working through archives and recording interviews now, and I’m trying to reach both people and materials across Germany (not just in Berlin!) and across fields. I’ve read articles in a magazine on sexual medicine as well as activist publications, and I’ve interviewed the head of a queer student group at a university and queer historians and sexual research groups in Germany. My goal is to collect as many different and diverse perspectives as possible and provide a paper trail for the way that I did this research so that people can explore further.
On top of that, though some people may say things that are intolerant or dissonant, it’s important context for the work I am doing: I aim to draw a comparison between science and activism, and if I have an interview where a person says things others may find intolerant, I still need to publish it. But I think that so often, journalistic objectivity may be interpreted to mean that a journalist should uncritically share exactly what they’ve found in their research and give equal airtime to each of these sides. But this can be harmful in different ways, from fueling intolerant conceptions of a group to perpetuating dangerous stereotypes to harming an individual by providing space for intolerance. I am also very aware of the tolerance paradox: if we uncritically provide airspace to every group, including being tolerant of hateful views, we are then intolerant for providing this platform for that intolerance.
All of this is why, perhaps, one of my college professors suggested replacing “objective” with “fair, accurate, and balanced” in our journalistic work.
In my own work, I will not provide every person’s insight unchallenged and uncritically, and I certainly will not take statements as accurate and truthful without further research. I will not use passive voice that takes agency away from actors within a system, and I will not necessarily give each voice equal airtime. I also understand that both my interview subjects and audiences are human, and I aim to avoid re-traumatization or harm as much as possible in my work. I won’t impose conceptions of modern identity onto the past, so I may use terms that are today considered outdated –– but I will always contextualize this usage and explain why I do it that way.
But I will also be up front about my own biases, including the ideas I held coming into the project and how they have evolved throughout the year. I will, for example, disclose that I have worked with LGBTQ+ youth organizations in the U.S. in the past, including the Kaleidoscope Youth Center, the Attic Youth Center, and the Human Rights Campaign. I’ll include discussion of my undergraduate courses in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and LGBT Studies, as it means I’m coming at so much of this from a feminist, queer theorist, or queer liberationist framework. I’ll share that I am queer and non-binary myself, that many of my loved ones are also queer and trans, and that I take many of these issues personally –– and while I do everything possible to separate my personal feelings from my research, I think having that frame is important for any audiences to critically examine my work.
I hope that my own work is not taken unchallenged and uncritically, especially because anything I publish will be inevitably created through the framework with which I was raised: white, upper-class, college-educated, queer, disabled, U.S. American. I’m also completing this research in Germany –– another “Western” or “Global North” context that has been heavily impacted by and benefitted from colonialism and racism. I was raised in a society based on heteropatriarchy and white supremacy, and even though I try to deconstruct so many of the internalized systems and my own biases, I think acknowledging all of these things as well as my work process and my work ethics allows my audience (you!) to better understand my work.
Ultimately, I think that my journalism ethics professor was correct: as long as we can explain why we chose to do what we did, then it can benefit our work much more than just bulldozing through complex ethical decisions with no context, and I think that open dialogue is vital for liberation and progression. I hope that this helps explain my approach to storytelling and truth-finding, and I hope that my work can foster productive, open discussions around many of the issues related to LGBTQ+ life in Germany, the U.S., and beyond.
Originally published on Cumulative Realities on July 7, 2023.
Abby Jeffers 