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The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity
Though both the right- and left-wing media claim “objectivity” in their reporting of these and other contentious issues, the American public has become increasingly cynical about truth, fact, and reality. In The View from Somewhere, Lewis Raven Wallace dives deep into the history of “objectivity” in journalism and how its been used to gatekeep and silence marginalized writers as far back as Ida B. Wells.
At its core, this is a book about fierce journalists who have pursued truth and transparency and sometimes been punished for it—not just by tyrannical governments but by journalistic institutions themselves. He highlights the stories of journalists who question “objectivity” with sensitivity and passion: Desmond Cole of the Toronto Star; New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse; Pulitzer Prize-winner Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah; Peabody-winning podcaster John Biewen; Guardian correspondent Gary Younge; former Buzzfeed reporter Meredith Talusan; and many others. Wallace also shares his own experiences as a midwestern transgender journalist and activist who was fired from his job as a national reporter for public radio for speaking out against “objectivity” in coverage of Trump and white supremacy.
With insightful steps through history, Wallace stresses that journalists have never been mere passive observers—the choices they make reflect worldviews tinted by race, class, gender, and geography. He upholds the centrality of facts and the necessary discipline of verification but argues against the long-held standard of “objective” media coverage that asks journalists to claim they are without bias. Using historical and contemporary examples—from lynching in the nineteenth century to transgender issues in the twenty-first—Wallace offers a definitive critique of “objectivity” as a catchall for accurate journalism. He calls for the dismissal of this damaging mythology in order to confront the realities of institutional power, racism, and other forms of oppression and exploitation in the news industry.
Now more than ever, journalism that resists extractive, exploitive, and tokenistic practices toward marginalized people isn’t just important—it is essential. Combining Wallace’s intellectual and emotional journey with the wisdom of others’ experiences, The View from Somewhere is a compelling rallying cry against journalist neutrality and for the validity of news told from distinctly subjective voices.
At its core, this is a book about fierce journalists who have pursued truth and transparency and sometimes been punished for it—not just by tyrannical governments but by journalistic institutions themselves. He highlights the stories of journalists who question “objectivity” with sensitivity and passion: Desmond Cole of the Toronto Star; New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse; Pulitzer Prize-winner Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah; Peabody-winning podcaster John Biewen; Guardian correspondent Gary Younge; former Buzzfeed reporter Meredith Talusan; and many others. Wallace also shares his own experiences as a midwestern transgender journalist and activist who was fired from his job as a national reporter for public radio for speaking out against “objectivity” in coverage of Trump and white supremacy.
With insightful steps through history, Wallace stresses that journalists have never been mere passive observers—the choices they make reflect worldviews tinted by race, class, gender, and geography. He upholds the centrality of facts and the necessary discipline of verification but argues against the long-held standard of “objective” media coverage that asks journalists to claim they are without bias. Using historical and contemporary examples—from lynching in the nineteenth century to transgender issues in the twenty-first—Wallace offers a definitive critique of “objectivity” as a catchall for accurate journalism. He calls for the dismissal of this damaging mythology in order to confront the realities of institutional power, racism, and other forms of oppression and exploitation in the news industry.
Now more than ever, journalism that resists extractive, exploitive, and tokenistic practices toward marginalized people isn’t just important—it is essential. Combining Wallace’s intellectual and emotional journey with the wisdom of others’ experiences, The View from Somewhere is a compelling rallying cry against journalist neutrality and for the validity of news told from distinctly subjective voices.
245 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2019
51 people are currently reading
1464 people want to read
About the author
Lewis Raven Wallace
3 books23 followersLewis Raven Wallace is an award-winning independent journalist based in Durham, North Carolina, the abolition journalism fellow at Interrupting Criminalization, and a cofounder of Press On, a Southern movement journalism collective. His book and podcast, The View from Somewhere, focus on undoing the myth of “objectivity” in journalism and uplifting stories of marginalized journalists; his second book, Radical Unlearning, is a joyful and science-backed guide to creating the conditions to let go of deeply held, harmful beliefs. He previously worked for public radio’s Marketplace, WYSO, and WBEZ. Lewis is white and transgender, and was born and raised in the Midwest with deep roots in the South.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
November 9, 2019
I would like to thank University of Chicago Press and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Where do you start when writing a review of a brutally honest, soul-searching book written by a young transgender journalist who was fired from his mainstream reporting job for questioning the usefulness of the journalistic concept of “objectivity” on a personal blog? Perhaps, as the author suggests, one should start with radical transparency. Like the author, I belong to the LGBTQIA community, like the author I am white, and thus benefit from the invisible privileges accorded whites in our society due to systemic racism. Yet, at the same time, I know what it is to be marginalized as a queer woman. I understand that marriage is more than a religious institution, as some try to claim today to exclude the LGBTQIA from the institution in the name of religious freedom. I know this because marriage affects access to health insurance, tax status, and even ability to see a hospitalized life partner. These are all things that a straight person takes for granted. So, when the author questions “objectivity” and points to how claims of objectivity historically and currently have preserved the status quo, I nod my head in agreement. But I hope that those who might not agree will at least listen to his arguments with an open mind. As the author does not claim the mantle of absolute certainty, but rather advocates for an open and honest debate about how we can restore American trust in news coverage.
Historically, as the author details, “objectivity” has been used by news outlets to define what is news. It has been used to exclude certain stories as deviant, such as Ida B. Wells exposé that revealed how lynching had become an epidemic in this country and how mainstream newspapers never questioned the veracity of the rape allegations that were used to justify the killing of black men. While wells crisscrossed the country gathering statistics on lynching, mainstream newspapers such as the New York Times launched an attack on her, calling her a “slanderous, nasty-minded mulattress.” But it was her “deviant” coverage that produced the most thorough picture of lynching in her time. It was stories such as hers that exposed the lie behind the status quo and transformed it.
But as the author also shows, one need not look to the nineteenth century to find cases where objectivity was used as a weapon to maintain the status quo and ensure certain groups remain in the margins. For example, if a woman reporter writes a story about abortion, her objectivity is called into question, because she has too much personal stake in the issue, as happened to Linda Greenhouse, a journalist at the time of the story affiliated with the New York Times. But the same question is never asked of male journalists who attend private dinners with politicians or are drinking buddies with Wall Street types? In short, objectivity and the concept of “conflict of interest” become ways of ensuring certain voices remain underrepresented.
As alternative, the author suggests that journalism should prioritize skepticism and a curiosity about the systems and structures that keep oppression in place, and radical transparency to the public about the values and methodologies that inform an individual reporter’s journalistic practice. This focus does not mean abandoning all tenets of traditional journalistic ethics: verification and fact-checking, editorial independence from political parties and corporations, clarity and transparency, and deep, thorough sourcing. But it does mean, the author argues, recognizing that journalists all write from somewhere and that somewhere is what can ensure diverse voices are represented in the media.
This thought-provoking book about the way forward for journalism in a polarized environment in which white supremacy hides behind outcries over “fake news” deserves a wide readership. Not because it purports to have all the answers, but because it dares to raise fundamental questions about how news is written and what it means when certain stories are deemed not “newsworthy” for marginalized and so-called mainstream communities.
Where do you start when writing a review of a brutally honest, soul-searching book written by a young transgender journalist who was fired from his mainstream reporting job for questioning the usefulness of the journalistic concept of “objectivity” on a personal blog? Perhaps, as the author suggests, one should start with radical transparency. Like the author, I belong to the LGBTQIA community, like the author I am white, and thus benefit from the invisible privileges accorded whites in our society due to systemic racism. Yet, at the same time, I know what it is to be marginalized as a queer woman. I understand that marriage is more than a religious institution, as some try to claim today to exclude the LGBTQIA from the institution in the name of religious freedom. I know this because marriage affects access to health insurance, tax status, and even ability to see a hospitalized life partner. These are all things that a straight person takes for granted. So, when the author questions “objectivity” and points to how claims of objectivity historically and currently have preserved the status quo, I nod my head in agreement. But I hope that those who might not agree will at least listen to his arguments with an open mind. As the author does not claim the mantle of absolute certainty, but rather advocates for an open and honest debate about how we can restore American trust in news coverage.
Historically, as the author details, “objectivity” has been used by news outlets to define what is news. It has been used to exclude certain stories as deviant, such as Ida B. Wells exposé that revealed how lynching had become an epidemic in this country and how mainstream newspapers never questioned the veracity of the rape allegations that were used to justify the killing of black men. While wells crisscrossed the country gathering statistics on lynching, mainstream newspapers such as the New York Times launched an attack on her, calling her a “slanderous, nasty-minded mulattress.” But it was her “deviant” coverage that produced the most thorough picture of lynching in her time. It was stories such as hers that exposed the lie behind the status quo and transformed it.
But as the author also shows, one need not look to the nineteenth century to find cases where objectivity was used as a weapon to maintain the status quo and ensure certain groups remain in the margins. For example, if a woman reporter writes a story about abortion, her objectivity is called into question, because she has too much personal stake in the issue, as happened to Linda Greenhouse, a journalist at the time of the story affiliated with the New York Times. But the same question is never asked of male journalists who attend private dinners with politicians or are drinking buddies with Wall Street types? In short, objectivity and the concept of “conflict of interest” become ways of ensuring certain voices remain underrepresented.
As alternative, the author suggests that journalism should prioritize skepticism and a curiosity about the systems and structures that keep oppression in place, and radical transparency to the public about the values and methodologies that inform an individual reporter’s journalistic practice. This focus does not mean abandoning all tenets of traditional journalistic ethics: verification and fact-checking, editorial independence from political parties and corporations, clarity and transparency, and deep, thorough sourcing. But it does mean, the author argues, recognizing that journalists all write from somewhere and that somewhere is what can ensure diverse voices are represented in the media.
This thought-provoking book about the way forward for journalism in a polarized environment in which white supremacy hides behind outcries over “fake news” deserves a wide readership. Not because it purports to have all the answers, but because it dares to raise fundamental questions about how news is written and what it means when certain stories are deemed not “newsworthy” for marginalized and so-called mainstream communities.
April 20, 2025
more memoir-y than i expected
May 21, 2022
“Fear of bad press from conservatives led PBS and NPR down a path of caution and self-censorship from which they have yet to return.”
T Thomas Fortune, Horace Greeley, Ida B. Wells, Heywood Broun, Marvel Cooke, Kerry Gruson and Peter Arnett are just some of the important names discussed in here who were responsible for some very significant journalism. Wallace does a fine job of scrutinizing our ideas around objectivity and revealing the hypocrisy and toxicity which can result.
Also other serious issues like the growing problem of false equivalence and fake balance, where,
“Journalists often parrot the words of presidents and self-made experts in order to seem “fair,” or inset a “second opinion” on a topic like climate change or gay rights in order to demonstrate balance, sometimes even at the expense of accuracy.”
It was also intriguing to see how “Time” magazine back in the day, telling off a journalist and then telling him to clean up his act (for being gay) and then paying for his conversion therapy. And the shocking levels of ongoing homophobia from “The New York Times” in the 80s. Yes that arrogant, snobby entity which proclaims “All the news that’s fit to print” and shies away from printing obscenities, but was happy to regularly embrace homophobia throughout much of the 80s.
“An important part of the strategy was to attack “liberal bias” in mainstream media and academia. An organisation called Accuracy in Media, founded in 1969, focused not on accuracy but on this perception of bias. Anything that didn’t reflect a conservative worldview was smeared for “liberal bias.” By the 1990s, these conservative worldview activists had tapped into an approach that wasn’t just politically powerful, but profitable.”
So this is a pretty good read, and Wallace presents some good, strong arguments and overall he makes a fairly convincing argument and this is an enjoyable book, which is certainly worth the read.
November 14, 2019
Journalism in the Information Age too often suffers from a lack of context, an absence of power analysis, and—perhaps most noticeably—a pretense toward an illusory sense of perfect, detached, neutral objectivity. Wallace diagnoses these problems through a combination of deep research, expert interviews, and personal experience, in the process modeling the very sort of journalism he wants to see more of: journalism that’s informed but compassionate, subjective but independent. Really well-done. Should be required reading for anyone working in the profession—or for close observers of it.
September 15, 2021
Theresa May had a tortuous time as Prime Minister with few memorable moments but when the ground wasn't shifting beneath her feet, she had time to make a speech about how you can't be a citizen of the world and if you think you are, then you are a citizen of nowhere. She was saying the truth but by then the blob had ganged up against her and it was curtains for her reign. She raised an important point though; the duality of existence between local and global has always been there but the current era has somehow prioritized the latter over the former. In truth our local existence is more important than the global, it shapes our view of life and most of the time affects our immediate existence more than the global but somehow we are all urged to be global citizens and try to be "objective", a clever gimmick to suppress locality. We can never be all the same.
In this book, Lewis Raven took the theme of objectivity in journalism head on. The author proved that most times objectivity has been a leash which the dominant group has used to reign in anyone who is not from that class. The argument is more nuanced and I will advise the interested reader to read the book and see how the case was prosecuted. What I loved about this book was that I could see it is an honest assessment by Lewis as ze [other acceptable pronouns were he and they but for reasons known to me I chose ze ] tried to make sense of being fired from a job ze loved. I did not agree with all the views presented, in fact I disagreed with most of them but I respected the effort taken into formulating them and that this was Lewis' viewpoint not necessarily mine.
I did not particularly agree with the implied notion that only people affected by something should be the ones to report on it. There has to be a tourist and resident take on any topic. People who are not black should be able to report on race without being harassed or accused of ignoring a particular point. The same should go for people who are not transgender reporting on transgender issues. If they are all chased away we run the risk of all reporting turning activist which if left unchecked will be no different from fascist propaganda the only difference being it will be serving a group rather than the state. Sure objectivity is an impossible standard but efforts to attain should not be discarded in favour of each person telling their own truth.
There are so many other things I did not agree with in this book not because they are wrong but because I have a differing view point from Wallace. Ze mostly concentrated on seeing things from a prism of individualism and effort was not taken to include community and tribal values and how they affect our lives. Sometimes a cynical take is allowed. This notion that if we all talk about something in a town hall that we will reach a consensus is a fiction. Some problems are wicked problems and objectivity is one of them. A lot of entropy was kept at bay when the church could claim that things are true because God said so but then enlightenment sold a fiction that the age of reason will be a glorious one. Alas, that was not to be and much as human beings we have the better angels of our nature, we equally have unspoken demons within us and this should not be forgotten.
I will still highly recommend this. It's one of the few books that had me thinking the entire time I was reading it and some reading sessions left me tired, a feeling similar to the bygone days when I had just finished doing a math paper. This is a thinking book and a worthy read.
In this book, Lewis Raven took the theme of objectivity in journalism head on. The author proved that most times objectivity has been a leash which the dominant group has used to reign in anyone who is not from that class. The argument is more nuanced and I will advise the interested reader to read the book and see how the case was prosecuted. What I loved about this book was that I could see it is an honest assessment by Lewis as ze [other acceptable pronouns were he and they but for reasons known to me I chose ze ] tried to make sense of being fired from a job ze loved. I did not agree with all the views presented, in fact I disagreed with most of them but I respected the effort taken into formulating them and that this was Lewis' viewpoint not necessarily mine.
I did not particularly agree with the implied notion that only people affected by something should be the ones to report on it. There has to be a tourist and resident take on any topic. People who are not black should be able to report on race without being harassed or accused of ignoring a particular point. The same should go for people who are not transgender reporting on transgender issues. If they are all chased away we run the risk of all reporting turning activist which if left unchecked will be no different from fascist propaganda the only difference being it will be serving a group rather than the state. Sure objectivity is an impossible standard but efforts to attain should not be discarded in favour of each person telling their own truth.
There are so many other things I did not agree with in this book not because they are wrong but because I have a differing view point from Wallace. Ze mostly concentrated on seeing things from a prism of individualism and effort was not taken to include community and tribal values and how they affect our lives. Sometimes a cynical take is allowed. This notion that if we all talk about something in a town hall that we will reach a consensus is a fiction. Some problems are wicked problems and objectivity is one of them. A lot of entropy was kept at bay when the church could claim that things are true because God said so but then enlightenment sold a fiction that the age of reason will be a glorious one. Alas, that was not to be and much as human beings we have the better angels of our nature, we equally have unspoken demons within us and this should not be forgotten.
I will still highly recommend this. It's one of the few books that had me thinking the entire time I was reading it and some reading sessions left me tired, a feeling similar to the bygone days when I had just finished doing a math paper. This is a thinking book and a worthy read.
November 4, 2020
I have not been a daily journalist in a long time, but I bought and read this book on objectivity. The issue won't let you go. Wallace conveys the pain that current and former journalists carry from struggling with this mainstream journalism convention.
Many books have been written on journalistic objectivity. What sets this study apart is that it is a personal book. Wallace has a great, sad personal story of being fired unfairly by NPR for a personal blog post. His book is also deeply informed by interviews and reading. He found some fascinating texts.
Struggling with objectivity, an overly exalted and literally impossible stand-in for fairness, can impart a certain rigor. But journalists tie themselves in knots, more often, and must deny their own personhood and insights. And why should a mainstream but small-town newspaper standard like this apply so broadly? Some of the best journalism being published is by magazines, such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Vanity Fair. This work reflects a more intellectual, informed, and broadly liberal mindset than most newspapers can achieve or ever aspired to. This work should be taught as models for student journalists.
At most newspapers and regional broadcast stations, journalists speak in a neutral, neutered voice so as to not cost owners money by causing controversy over seeming to have an opinion or being politically partisan. To partly address the pain I began with, this constraint actually leaves journalists with LESS responsibility for what they report. And they ask, in a pinch, what should a JOURNALIST do? The "writers" or "contributing editors" at magazines ask, instead, what should a HUMAN do?
Many books have been written on journalistic objectivity. What sets this study apart is that it is a personal book. Wallace has a great, sad personal story of being fired unfairly by NPR for a personal blog post. His book is also deeply informed by interviews and reading. He found some fascinating texts.
Struggling with objectivity, an overly exalted and literally impossible stand-in for fairness, can impart a certain rigor. But journalists tie themselves in knots, more often, and must deny their own personhood and insights. And why should a mainstream but small-town newspaper standard like this apply so broadly? Some of the best journalism being published is by magazines, such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Vanity Fair. This work reflects a more intellectual, informed, and broadly liberal mindset than most newspapers can achieve or ever aspired to. This work should be taught as models for student journalists.
At most newspapers and regional broadcast stations, journalists speak in a neutral, neutered voice so as to not cost owners money by causing controversy over seeming to have an opinion or being politically partisan. To partly address the pain I began with, this constraint actually leaves journalists with LESS responsibility for what they report. And they ask, in a pinch, what should a JOURNALIST do? The "writers" or "contributing editors" at magazines ask, instead, what should a HUMAN do?
October 24, 2020
It was full of ideologically charged silliness that proposed, vaguely, a broken solution for a broken system. It offered most of its evidence in the way of anecdotes and cherry-picked interviews. Occasionally claims would be stated and not given context nor evidence alongside them. This was the worst course text I have ever been assigned to date.
April 5, 2023
So I started out reading this book already sympathetic to the view that total objectivity is not possible; we all have a position. But there is much more to learn, and Wallace opened up many aspects in general as well as those that apply specifically to journalists.
I appreciated Wallace's breaking "objectivity" into parts: "detachment, nonpartisianship, ...inverted pyramid . . . , facticity, and balance" (7). Among these, "detachment" and "balance" get the most scrutiny and "facticity" gets the strongest support. Wallace points out the conflict when organizations seek writers from various minorities to increase diversity then forbid them to write on areas they are involved in; i.e., the areas of their diversity. And challenged is a "balance" that involves right vs. left to the exclusion of other potential differences, like male/female or rich/poor to name a few.
I found the early history of objectivity in journalism, including the history of public broadcasting, quite interesting. Only Ida B. Wells was familiar to me. Wallace illustrates how the selection of what is/isn't newsworthy depends of the perspective of the deciding editor and his/her determination of the audience more than an objective status of the event and asks, "When 'objectivity' responds to public perceptions, which public is it" (7). Another example shows Wallace as editor passing over an episode of a person killed while shopping for a BB gun a couple weeks before Michael Browne's murder in Ferguson when protests brought a killing to focus that might have otherwise also been overlooked. Another example, burying a demonstration of thousands while giving front page to one of 50. Subsequent chapters focus on a particular issue and how journalists involved in the issue have been excluded and what, therefore, has been lost: labor unions, Vietnam, and AIDS among others. The book is filled with experiences and stories, those of Wallace and of other reporters, and is quite readable. Wallace identifies as transgender, which makes the chapter explaining the need for insiders' perspectives on trans issues helpfully clarifying in a time when transsexual issues have become the issue d'jour.
Wallace shares findings of other writers on journalistic objectivity, which adds several books to my to-read list while I feel for some the summary is enough. One provides the frame for much of the book's analysis, dividing ideas into concentric circles: those commonly held, ideas that may be contested, and ideas beyond discussion. The chapter on AIDS traces the movement from fringe to center of that frame. The chapter on journalism as an extractive industry made me reevaluate my reading habits.
Wallace goes beyond journalism to discuss the difference between 'multiple truths' and 'alternate facts,' the difference between inquiry and "the colonization of doubt," a phrase he borrows from Kevin Young (156). Questioning in a way that leads to more inquiry is useful; questioning that leads to giving up is that colonization of doubt. More needs to be thought on this--and it looks like another book to read-- but this book is a helpful consideration.
The conclusion emphasizes curiosity, especially concerning systems that filter our thinking, over objectivity and remnds that objectivity usually reinforces the status quo. An important book as well as interesting.
I appreciated Wallace's breaking "objectivity" into parts: "detachment, nonpartisianship, ...inverted pyramid . . . , facticity, and balance" (7). Among these, "detachment" and "balance" get the most scrutiny and "facticity" gets the strongest support. Wallace points out the conflict when organizations seek writers from various minorities to increase diversity then forbid them to write on areas they are involved in; i.e., the areas of their diversity. And challenged is a "balance" that involves right vs. left to the exclusion of other potential differences, like male/female or rich/poor to name a few.
I found the early history of objectivity in journalism, including the history of public broadcasting, quite interesting. Only Ida B. Wells was familiar to me. Wallace illustrates how the selection of what is/isn't newsworthy depends of the perspective of the deciding editor and his/her determination of the audience more than an objective status of the event and asks, "When 'objectivity' responds to public perceptions, which public is it" (7). Another example shows Wallace as editor passing over an episode of a person killed while shopping for a BB gun a couple weeks before Michael Browne's murder in Ferguson when protests brought a killing to focus that might have otherwise also been overlooked. Another example, burying a demonstration of thousands while giving front page to one of 50. Subsequent chapters focus on a particular issue and how journalists involved in the issue have been excluded and what, therefore, has been lost: labor unions, Vietnam, and AIDS among others. The book is filled with experiences and stories, those of Wallace and of other reporters, and is quite readable. Wallace identifies as transgender, which makes the chapter explaining the need for insiders' perspectives on trans issues helpfully clarifying in a time when transsexual issues have become the issue d'jour.
Wallace shares findings of other writers on journalistic objectivity, which adds several books to my to-read list while I feel for some the summary is enough. One provides the frame for much of the book's analysis, dividing ideas into concentric circles: those commonly held, ideas that may be contested, and ideas beyond discussion. The chapter on AIDS traces the movement from fringe to center of that frame. The chapter on journalism as an extractive industry made me reevaluate my reading habits.
Wallace goes beyond journalism to discuss the difference between 'multiple truths' and 'alternate facts,' the difference between inquiry and "the colonization of doubt," a phrase he borrows from Kevin Young (156). Questioning in a way that leads to more inquiry is useful; questioning that leads to giving up is that colonization of doubt. More needs to be thought on this--and it looks like another book to read-- but this book is a helpful consideration.
The conclusion emphasizes curiosity, especially concerning systems that filter our thinking, over objectivity and remnds that objectivity usually reinforces the status quo. An important book as well as interesting.
April 3, 2025
⭐⭐⭐ - 3.75 Stars
Another read for my journalism ethics class -- and another excerpt from my class assignment:
“Has The New York Times done it yet?” is a question long asked by working journalists, their editors and publishers, one that has trickling effects in our current news ecosystem. “The View from Somewhere,” written by journalist Lewis Raven Wallace, however, challenges the standards of journalistic “objectivity,” revealing that the newsroom standard may not be as valuable as it appears.
The Times, with over 11 million subscribers, is often seen as a major agenda-setting news outlet in the United States, built on decades of powerful reporting, concrete investigations and innovative storytelling. In its role setting the agenda, The Times and other leading media outlets often exclude oppressed communities, a central theme to Wallace’s debut book.
“Objectivity is the ideology of the status quo,” said Ramona Martinez, former NPR producer and current producer for “The View From Somewhere” podcast.
This status quo, as Wallace suggests, can often feel like a “refuge,” relieving its users of obligations to individuals and communities. Wallace frames the issue around the homogeneity of most newsrooms. White, cisgender men are the only ones who can remain “objective.”
“Performing ‘objectivity’ also often means sidelining women, trans people, and people of color who call for real social change in newsrooms–the fear of being deemed “activist” for standing up for ourselves is very real,”(297) he writes.
Wallace structures the book through movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, describing not only the movements as a whole and narrativizing the way “objectivity” has shaped the news and the consumers view of the news.
Another read for my journalism ethics class -- and another excerpt from my class assignment:
“Has The New York Times done it yet?” is a question long asked by working journalists, their editors and publishers, one that has trickling effects in our current news ecosystem. “The View from Somewhere,” written by journalist Lewis Raven Wallace, however, challenges the standards of journalistic “objectivity,” revealing that the newsroom standard may not be as valuable as it appears.
The Times, with over 11 million subscribers, is often seen as a major agenda-setting news outlet in the United States, built on decades of powerful reporting, concrete investigations and innovative storytelling. In its role setting the agenda, The Times and other leading media outlets often exclude oppressed communities, a central theme to Wallace’s debut book.
“Objectivity is the ideology of the status quo,” said Ramona Martinez, former NPR producer and current producer for “The View From Somewhere” podcast.
This status quo, as Wallace suggests, can often feel like a “refuge,” relieving its users of obligations to individuals and communities. Wallace frames the issue around the homogeneity of most newsrooms. White, cisgender men are the only ones who can remain “objective.”
“Performing ‘objectivity’ also often means sidelining women, trans people, and people of color who call for real social change in newsrooms–the fear of being deemed “activist” for standing up for ourselves is very real,”(297) he writes.
Wallace structures the book through movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, describing not only the movements as a whole and narrativizing the way “objectivity” has shaped the news and the consumers view of the news.
September 27, 2024
“If I’m standing in the rising water, am I too close to the story?”
“During Hurricane Katrina, a lot of the reporting focused on ‘looters’ and violence, turned away from the stories about dozens and then thousands of deaths, dozens and then thousands of people helping each other survive. I imagine myself on the NPR newscast, voice cracking. Nearly two thousand people died here. I’m standing in the water. Hundreds of thousands still displaced. It smells like sewage and death. There is a dog’s body, a trailer door floating past. There’s someone on her way to help; there’s someone on that roof, yelling. What can we do to make this picture different? How can we stop the water rising, hold open the gates so no one is trapped inside?”
Incredible, important, grounding.
“During Hurricane Katrina, a lot of the reporting focused on ‘looters’ and violence, turned away from the stories about dozens and then thousands of deaths, dozens and then thousands of people helping each other survive. I imagine myself on the NPR newscast, voice cracking. Nearly two thousand people died here. I’m standing in the water. Hundreds of thousands still displaced. It smells like sewage and death. There is a dog’s body, a trailer door floating past. There’s someone on her way to help; there’s someone on that roof, yelling. What can we do to make this picture different? How can we stop the water rising, hold open the gates so no one is trapped inside?”
Incredible, important, grounding.
November 20, 2020
This book is just incandescently brilliant and a must read.
January 11, 2022
journalism books >>
March 9, 2022
Amazing book about how we need journalists but we need them to act and think differently. Journalists have, for decades, said that they recognize full objectivity is not achievable. But then they do their jobs with the same principles, often couched in adjacent, but similar, terminology. Need more discussions on this book and what it proposes. Must read.
October 19, 2021
After loosing his job at American Public Media’s “Marketplace” following a blog post questioning the role of “objectivity” in journalism in an era of Trumpian “alternative-facts”, Trans writer Lewis Raven Wallace set out to grapple with the history of journalistic objectivity and whether it actually is an ideal to be lauded.
Wallace lays out his career in journalism, from a small radio station in Ohio skipping over a story of a local black man being shot by police (because there were already bigger stories like that coming out of Ferguson), to being hired at WBEZ Chicago as a part of a diversity program and being told not to write on the subjects he was familiar with due to is activism “bias”, and finally working at Marketplace and going to Detroit to get sources for stories and realizing how exploitative the process was.
The book also is a primer on the history of journalism in the United States, with a specific focus on the “objectivity” of it. Wallace retells the stories of early black journalists like Ida B. Wells, Anti-war reporters from the Vietnam era, and LGBT journalists during the AIDS crisis and how their closeness to the topic (construed as bias and unobjective by contemporaries) made them better as journalists.
“As I discovered in my research, gay journalists were the ones who mad more rooom for stories about gay people and AIDS; Black anti-lynching activists were the leaders in telling stories about the terrors of Jim Crow laws; #BlackLivesMatter activists were the ones who created an opening for better reporting on police killings; and transgender writers have been leading the debate over trans issues for two decades, in spite of our exclusion from much of the supposedly “objective” discussions of our lives.”
Wallace describes the book as his “response to the demand for more nuanced conversation about the purpose of telling news stories in the twenty-first century, who should tell them, and how they should be told.” The book’s main thesis is that journalistic objectivity is a subjective construct, often used to protect the status quo for the benefit of the main audience of journalism for its entire history (cis white men), at the detriment of marginalized people and their stories. Newspapers and radio stations have begun to recognize the homogenous aspect of their focus and tried to rectify that by bringing in “diverse voices and perspectives” all while telling those diverse reporters that their views are not objective and are biased.
“The View from Somewhere is ultimately an argument against what I view as a damaging false dichotomy. I believe journalists can seek the truth without engaging in a battle against the subjective or the activist. And battles against subjectivity and activism have too often amounted to being battles against the marginalized and oppressed. That is because the center is ever shifting and “objectivity” is a false ideal that upholds the status quo.”
Overall I found this to be a very insightful book on journalism and agree with the premise put forth by Wallace. I myself as a consumer noticed that the effort to remain neutral and objective had led to bending themselves into knots in the last five years (NPR refusing to call Trump a liar, both-sides-ing on issues where one side clearly has the facts, etc.) and made the transition from consuming those sources that platform homophobes, racists, and climate-deniers in an effort to be “impartial” - to consuming sources where they instead are transparent and self-aware of their biases but present facts and opinions consistent with those facts.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who's worried about the massive corporate media apparatus and it's seemingly endless inability to not both sides issues that really have one side.
Wallace lays out his career in journalism, from a small radio station in Ohio skipping over a story of a local black man being shot by police (because there were already bigger stories like that coming out of Ferguson), to being hired at WBEZ Chicago as a part of a diversity program and being told not to write on the subjects he was familiar with due to is activism “bias”, and finally working at Marketplace and going to Detroit to get sources for stories and realizing how exploitative the process was.
The book also is a primer on the history of journalism in the United States, with a specific focus on the “objectivity” of it. Wallace retells the stories of early black journalists like Ida B. Wells, Anti-war reporters from the Vietnam era, and LGBT journalists during the AIDS crisis and how their closeness to the topic (construed as bias and unobjective by contemporaries) made them better as journalists.
“As I discovered in my research, gay journalists were the ones who mad more rooom for stories about gay people and AIDS; Black anti-lynching activists were the leaders in telling stories about the terrors of Jim Crow laws; #BlackLivesMatter activists were the ones who created an opening for better reporting on police killings; and transgender writers have been leading the debate over trans issues for two decades, in spite of our exclusion from much of the supposedly “objective” discussions of our lives.”
Wallace describes the book as his “response to the demand for more nuanced conversation about the purpose of telling news stories in the twenty-first century, who should tell them, and how they should be told.” The book’s main thesis is that journalistic objectivity is a subjective construct, often used to protect the status quo for the benefit of the main audience of journalism for its entire history (cis white men), at the detriment of marginalized people and their stories. Newspapers and radio stations have begun to recognize the homogenous aspect of their focus and tried to rectify that by bringing in “diverse voices and perspectives” all while telling those diverse reporters that their views are not objective and are biased.
“The View from Somewhere is ultimately an argument against what I view as a damaging false dichotomy. I believe journalists can seek the truth without engaging in a battle against the subjective or the activist. And battles against subjectivity and activism have too often amounted to being battles against the marginalized and oppressed. That is because the center is ever shifting and “objectivity” is a false ideal that upholds the status quo.”
Overall I found this to be a very insightful book on journalism and agree with the premise put forth by Wallace. I myself as a consumer noticed that the effort to remain neutral and objective had led to bending themselves into knots in the last five years (NPR refusing to call Trump a liar, both-sides-ing on issues where one side clearly has the facts, etc.) and made the transition from consuming those sources that platform homophobes, racists, and climate-deniers in an effort to be “impartial” - to consuming sources where they instead are transparent and self-aware of their biases but present facts and opinions consistent with those facts.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who's worried about the massive corporate media apparatus and it's seemingly endless inability to not both sides issues that really have one side.
July 20, 2019
The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity from Lewis Raven Wallace is an important and timely history of how the idea of objectivity has become the unattainable stated necessity of journalism at the same time that it is used to make sure that many events and situations are presented in a distinctly nonobjective manner.
Even journalists who believe that objectivity should be the goal of journalism acknowledge that it is an unattainable goal. Humans are subjective, we have opinions and viewpoints. Those will always play into how we do anything we do. Largely, those who deny their subjectivity within an area, in this case journalism, present the more lopsided views because they haven't taken into account their own biases. Those who acknowledge their subjectivity can at least make an effort to make sure their accounts are fair. Fair is not the same as objective and it is not the same as balanced. It means that you're not intentionally skewing facts, or ignoring facts, to make your view appear better.
Wallace uses people and incidents from the past century or so to highlight that not only has "objectivity" never been fully endorsed but also how the claims to objectivity have largely been used to silence those who don't subscribe to the status quo. People of color, women, LGBTQIA+ people have all been shut out from representation on the basis of claims of being unable to be objective. Yet, as Wallace notes, no white male journalist has been taken off a story solely because it involves a white male. Things that make me go hmmmmmm.
Wallace does not advocate for distorted stories but from previously marginalized positions. Rather that fair and accurate journalism has nothing to do with the unattainable concept of objectivity.
As an aside, I saw a brief review from someone who claims to be an "educator." This person took about a dozen words out of the first chapter, took them out of context, then recontextualized them within an amazingly distorted dog-whistle laden "review." If you see that, just ignore it, that person obviously is not only biased but is perfectly comfortable being dishonest and misleading. There will be plenty of people, journalists and nonjournalists alike, who will disagree with some or all of Wallace's viewpoints. That is to be expected. If you think you're one of those people, I think you should read this book so you can hear different opinions expressed well and then make sure you're comfortable with wherever you stand on the issue.
I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in our current social, cultural, and political environment, especially as it pertains to journalism and the dissemination of current events. If read with an open mind, I believe everyone can take something useful from this book.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Even journalists who believe that objectivity should be the goal of journalism acknowledge that it is an unattainable goal. Humans are subjective, we have opinions and viewpoints. Those will always play into how we do anything we do. Largely, those who deny their subjectivity within an area, in this case journalism, present the more lopsided views because they haven't taken into account their own biases. Those who acknowledge their subjectivity can at least make an effort to make sure their accounts are fair. Fair is not the same as objective and it is not the same as balanced. It means that you're not intentionally skewing facts, or ignoring facts, to make your view appear better.
Wallace uses people and incidents from the past century or so to highlight that not only has "objectivity" never been fully endorsed but also how the claims to objectivity have largely been used to silence those who don't subscribe to the status quo. People of color, women, LGBTQIA+ people have all been shut out from representation on the basis of claims of being unable to be objective. Yet, as Wallace notes, no white male journalist has been taken off a story solely because it involves a white male. Things that make me go hmmmmmm.
Wallace does not advocate for distorted stories but from previously marginalized positions. Rather that fair and accurate journalism has nothing to do with the unattainable concept of objectivity.
As an aside, I saw a brief review from someone who claims to be an "educator." This person took about a dozen words out of the first chapter, took them out of context, then recontextualized them within an amazingly distorted dog-whistle laden "review." If you see that, just ignore it, that person obviously is not only biased but is perfectly comfortable being dishonest and misleading. There will be plenty of people, journalists and nonjournalists alike, who will disagree with some or all of Wallace's viewpoints. That is to be expected. If you think you're one of those people, I think you should read this book so you can hear different opinions expressed well and then make sure you're comfortable with wherever you stand on the issue.
I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in our current social, cultural, and political environment, especially as it pertains to journalism and the dissemination of current events. If read with an open mind, I believe everyone can take something useful from this book.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
January 22, 2020
[5 stars] I think about "objectivity" a lot, both because I have a general interest in media justice and because I now work in philanthropy where, like journalism, the idea that the opinions and ideas of wealthy cisgender heterosexual able-bodied white men are most "free" from bias prevails. In The View from Somewhere, Lewis Raven Wallace takes a critical look at "objectivity", its corporate, right wing, white nationalist, and anti-Black roots, who's benefited from its rise as a journalistic standard, and what's been lost in the process.
If you're not familiar with Lewis' experience working in then being fired from public radio, you'll get to learn a bit throughout the book; if you are, be assured that there's much more than memoir here. I really liked learning about the histories of early journalism, the start of CPB/NPR, and the profiles of journalists and writers through a racial, gender, and economic justice lens. And just when I was wanting more on the roles of whiteness and white supremacy in the social construction of "objectivity" and its contemporary uses, a chapter on the subject appeared, reminding me to be patient, that there is an art to constructing a story arc of course. Where other books critiquing corporate and public media have fallen flat for me, getting themselves twisted into a defeatism stance, The View from Somewhere urges its readers to remain curious and hopeful as an antidote to what troubles mainstream journalism and media today. One chapter ends by asking "What if our job as journalists isn't to pummel people with "objective" facts, but to keep them asking questions?" and I guarantee it won't be the only sentence you'll want to underline.
Highly recommended for people interested in media studies / history, those who enjoy work that asks us to consider multiple truths, and anyone who's ever rolled their eyes at the inclusion of an anti-choicer or climate denier on a CNN panel and wants to learn some of the history of how we've even gotten here.
Goodreads Challenge: 7/52
Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book by or about a journalist
If you're not familiar with Lewis' experience working in then being fired from public radio, you'll get to learn a bit throughout the book; if you are, be assured that there's much more than memoir here. I really liked learning about the histories of early journalism, the start of CPB/NPR, and the profiles of journalists and writers through a racial, gender, and economic justice lens. And just when I was wanting more on the roles of whiteness and white supremacy in the social construction of "objectivity" and its contemporary uses, a chapter on the subject appeared, reminding me to be patient, that there is an art to constructing a story arc of course. Where other books critiquing corporate and public media have fallen flat for me, getting themselves twisted into a defeatism stance, The View from Somewhere urges its readers to remain curious and hopeful as an antidote to what troubles mainstream journalism and media today. One chapter ends by asking "What if our job as journalists isn't to pummel people with "objective" facts, but to keep them asking questions?" and I guarantee it won't be the only sentence you'll want to underline.
Highly recommended for people interested in media studies / history, those who enjoy work that asks us to consider multiple truths, and anyone who's ever rolled their eyes at the inclusion of an anti-choicer or climate denier on a CNN panel and wants to learn some of the history of how we've even gotten here.
Goodreads Challenge: 7/52
Popsugar Reading Challenge: A book by or about a journalist
August 2, 2020
Incredibly insightful look into the relationship between news reporting and the goal of objectivity. As a journalist, I’ve asked myself these questions many times, although not nearly as eloquently as Wallace words them. This serves as a wonderful introduction to the topic for those who are interested in challenging the myth of objectivity, and Wallace provides eye-opening research and history to back his claims. Both his personal experiences and the stories of those before him are expertly intertwined to make the argument that journalists are, simply put, human and therefore carry with them their own biases. Highly recommend to anyone, especially those like myself who are frustrated by the propaganda that seems to be getting spewed by even the more left-leaning major national news sources. The more time I spend reading and questioning the stories distributed by major news outlets, the more I recognize that no news source is truly “leftist,” and that all work to uphold the ideals of white supremacy and capitalism in truth-seeking that have permeated our society for nearly all its history. After reading this, I’ve become far more inclined to seek out local, smaller newspapers to support and get news from.
October 25, 2022
Worst book I have read this year.
The writing wasn't particularly bad, but it was by times repetitive. Most importantly, it was self-serving, mostly in the first chapters.
The seminal problem with this book is that it presents itself as tackling big questions : What is objectivity? What is truth? What does it mean in a journalistic context? Yet we never discuss the substance of objectivity (a word Wallace uses interchangeably with "impartiality", with no other real justification that it seems newsroom now disguise objectivity as impartiality in their guidelines). Throughout the book, we understand that Wallace is against some form of "objectivity", yet he never plainly explains what it means to them; we just get an ever growing list of problems associated with the consequences of it. I do not understand how a university press will publish a book about objectivity and impartiality that never touches on any of the definitions offered by philosophy or the justice system. As an example, the Canadian Judicial Council has described impartiality as such:
"...the wisdom required of a judge is to recognize, consciously allow for, and perhaps to question, all the baggage of past attitudes and sympathies that fellow citizens are free to carry, untested, to the grave. True impartiality does not require that the judge have no sympathies or opinions; it requires that the judge nevertheless be free to entertain and act upon different points of view with an open mind."
Legal philosophy, due to the judges' power over people's liberties, have thought about what it means to be impartial for decades, if not centuries. Unfortunately, even though Wallace describes the importance of being curious and to see the truth as multi-faceted, the book conveys a very narrow research that never references any other sphere that also has to deal with the definition of impartiality and objectivity. As a result, this book provides no framework to think about objectivity and journalism, and leaves me thinking this was a pure waste of time. Most importantly, the difference between neutrality, objectivity, and impartiality is barely touched upon.
Wallace seems to have decided that all of journalism's problem fit under the conveniently broad and undefined notion of objectivity - They have made a career out of it as I understand it. To them underfunding and erosion of local media, the rise of right-wing populism and the absence of completely public media in the US are all rooted in a single word : objectivity. To me, this is a lazy way of describing complex issues without getting to the bottom of them and the possible solutions.
To avoid if you are interested in anything else than a few personal stories.
The writing wasn't particularly bad, but it was by times repetitive. Most importantly, it was self-serving, mostly in the first chapters.
The seminal problem with this book is that it presents itself as tackling big questions : What is objectivity? What is truth? What does it mean in a journalistic context? Yet we never discuss the substance of objectivity (a word Wallace uses interchangeably with "impartiality", with no other real justification that it seems newsroom now disguise objectivity as impartiality in their guidelines). Throughout the book, we understand that Wallace is against some form of "objectivity", yet he never plainly explains what it means to them; we just get an ever growing list of problems associated with the consequences of it. I do not understand how a university press will publish a book about objectivity and impartiality that never touches on any of the definitions offered by philosophy or the justice system. As an example, the Canadian Judicial Council has described impartiality as such:
"...the wisdom required of a judge is to recognize, consciously allow for, and perhaps to question, all the baggage of past attitudes and sympathies that fellow citizens are free to carry, untested, to the grave. True impartiality does not require that the judge have no sympathies or opinions; it requires that the judge nevertheless be free to entertain and act upon different points of view with an open mind."
Legal philosophy, due to the judges' power over people's liberties, have thought about what it means to be impartial for decades, if not centuries. Unfortunately, even though Wallace describes the importance of being curious and to see the truth as multi-faceted, the book conveys a very narrow research that never references any other sphere that also has to deal with the definition of impartiality and objectivity. As a result, this book provides no framework to think about objectivity and journalism, and leaves me thinking this was a pure waste of time. Most importantly, the difference between neutrality, objectivity, and impartiality is barely touched upon.
Wallace seems to have decided that all of journalism's problem fit under the conveniently broad and undefined notion of objectivity - They have made a career out of it as I understand it. To them underfunding and erosion of local media, the rise of right-wing populism and the absence of completely public media in the US are all rooted in a single word : objectivity. To me, this is a lazy way of describing complex issues without getting to the bottom of them and the possible solutions.
To avoid if you are interested in anything else than a few personal stories.
December 16, 2020
The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity is a critique of modern journalism's obsession with perceived objectivity. Lewis Raven Wallace's personal experiences and the stories of those before him are expertly intertwined to make the argument that journalists are, simply put, human and therefore carry with them their own biases. From the outside, for consumers of news and information like myself, this book is a reminder to remain curious and hopeful as an antidote to what troubles mainstream journalism and media today. It may be a controversial read. After all, Wallace believes that "standing to the side of history is impossible when we are the ones writing it." But it is an interesting one, and one I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in our current social, cultural, and political environment, especially as it pertains to journalism and the dissemination of current events.
January 30, 2021
An excellent, informative and well-researched book exploring the myth of journalistic objectivity in several areas, including race, class, gender and other exploited, marginalised groups
Through the use of first and second-hand research, the author convincingly shows how predominantly white and male journalists have used "objectivity" to seek authority in maintaining the ideology of the status quo, which leads to three main outcomes:
1. “Objectivity” has been used again and again for gatekeeping, to discourage labor organizing and exclude diverse voices
2.“Objectivity” excludes certain people by suggesting that a detached observer is a better one, even as many of the most important stories of our times have been told by people who were close to the issue, not detached outsiders
3.“Objectivity” has a tendency to objectify, turning people into flattened-out “sources” whose stories are there for the taking, encouraging an extractive approach to journalism in which the journalist is never implicated or accountable
Finally the author calls for a systemic and ongoing analysis of power and oppression, not just in our reporting but in our assessment of the field of journalism itself
Through the use of first and second-hand research, the author convincingly shows how predominantly white and male journalists have used "objectivity" to seek authority in maintaining the ideology of the status quo, which leads to three main outcomes:
1. “Objectivity” has been used again and again for gatekeeping, to discourage labor organizing and exclude diverse voices
2.“Objectivity” excludes certain people by suggesting that a detached observer is a better one, even as many of the most important stories of our times have been told by people who were close to the issue, not detached outsiders
3.“Objectivity” has a tendency to objectify, turning people into flattened-out “sources” whose stories are there for the taking, encouraging an extractive approach to journalism in which the journalist is never implicated or accountable
Finally the author calls for a systemic and ongoing analysis of power and oppression, not just in our reporting but in our assessment of the field of journalism itself
March 28, 2025
wow. i think this might turn out to be one of the most formative pieces of media to myself and my career.
been struggling a lot with becoming a journalist (calling myself that, the standards, the doing of it) but it’s almost surprising just how easy it is. if i ever had a calling, i wonder if this is it. but more than anything ive been wondering what my role will be in society and how to be a journalist in todays world. how do i stay true to the truth? to myself? to my beliefs? how much of me is a journalist & how much is just me? is there a difference? should there be one? am i choosing a voyeuristic life? a lonely one? is that why it speaks so deeply to me?
none of these questions are really answered. (they’re not really answerable questions). but it’s comforting to know that this is something people think about, to know that someone has grappled with and that they’re sharing what they’ve learned too. i think i still have a lot to digest from this book (i literally just finished it), but it’s important and im really glad it was written.
been struggling a lot with becoming a journalist (calling myself that, the standards, the doing of it) but it’s almost surprising just how easy it is. if i ever had a calling, i wonder if this is it. but more than anything ive been wondering what my role will be in society and how to be a journalist in todays world. how do i stay true to the truth? to myself? to my beliefs? how much of me is a journalist & how much is just me? is there a difference? should there be one? am i choosing a voyeuristic life? a lonely one? is that why it speaks so deeply to me?
none of these questions are really answered. (they’re not really answerable questions). but it’s comforting to know that this is something people think about, to know that someone has grappled with and that they’re sharing what they’ve learned too. i think i still have a lot to digest from this book (i literally just finished it), but it’s important and im really glad it was written.
July 3, 2019
The View from Somewhere is a critique of modern journalism's obsession with perceived objectivity. Wallace writes of his experiences as a transgender reporter as well of the experiences of those he has talked to. The thesis of the book is probably that "objectivity is the ideology of the status quo," and I am inclined to agree.
If you are interested in how journalism got to be what it is today or are interested in being a journalist, I would definitely recommend this book. The only issue I had with it is it was very information heavy and took a while to read. But the information was both interesting and factual and the book was very interesting.
It may be a controversial read. After all, Wallace believes that "standing to the side of history is impossible when we are the ones writing it." But it is an interesting one, and one I would definitely recommend.
(I received a free Advanced Readers Copy from NetGalley but my review and my opinions are entirely my own.)
If you are interested in how journalism got to be what it is today or are interested in being a journalist, I would definitely recommend this book. The only issue I had with it is it was very information heavy and took a while to read. But the information was both interesting and factual and the book was very interesting.
It may be a controversial read. After all, Wallace believes that "standing to the side of history is impossible when we are the ones writing it." But it is an interesting one, and one I would definitely recommend.
(I received a free Advanced Readers Copy from NetGalley but my review and my opinions are entirely my own.)
October 10, 2021
This book gave me a lot to think about. I cited it in this new article for Medium about three conservative American media figures and also in the 2021 update of my memoir Bad Fire. Wallace's insights are nuanced and anchored in history while simultaneously presenting a radical inversion of ways in which we are often taught to think and talk about "objectivity."
January 28, 2021
This is such a smart, eloquent and heartfelt book. Lewis Raven Wallace ties so many strands into this one question of objectivity. The connection is valid, but sometimes feels a little forced. Still, I learned a lot from reading this, and I feel that I see the world a little differently now because of it.
January 28, 2021
This book is so. Good. A comprehensive look at how objectivity as a value developed in newsrooms in the US, and how it is profoundly failing to challenge the status quo or serve anyone who is in any way a minority. Essential reading to understand the role of journalism in our understanding of politics and where on earth we go next to try and solve it.
January 10, 2023
Fantastic. Thought-provoking. Challenging. The View from Somewhere is a book that uses journalism as a way to further examine everything from our own biology to the status quo and how society functions as a whole. The author offers a philosophical look at reform and what change means to us at all.
March 22, 2024
I really enjoyed this. It started to get repetitive by the later essays, but I didn't mind because Lewis features different journalists so I enjoyed hearing what they had to say. There are so many incredible quotes and paragraphs that I'll continue to return to. Definitely recommend this one. Lewis also has an episode on this topic on season 4 of Scene on Radio (episode 11 of that season)
January 31, 2025
Read for class and it was highkey fire: it was about objectivity in the media and how that’s nearly impossible to attain. My favorite parts were when they talk about how the only people that are truly objective (according to the higher ups) are white cis straight men and everyone else is distrusted and biased. They really had great points throughout this book and it wasn’t very long of a read!
January 2, 2020
Lewis engages some tough questions fairly and with courageous curiosity. A thought-provoking and very interesting read for journalists and anyone who thinks about the role of media in shaping our world.
February 7, 2021
Ponders the future of journalism by examining its past and analyzing the present. A great display of the anxieties that many young (and some not so young) journos have been feeling about a profession that they love, though it may seemed doomed to fail some days.
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