A timely call for a new ethic of journalism engagement for today's troubled media sphere, Objectively Engaged Journalism argues that media should be neither neutral nor partisan but engaged in protecting egalitarian democracy. It shows how journalists, professional or citizen, can be both objective in method and dedicated to improving a global public sphere toxic with disinformation, fake news, and extremism.

Drawing from history, ethics, and current media issues, Stephen Ward rejects the ideals of neutrality and "just the facts" objectivity, showing how they are based on invalid dualistic thinking with deep roots in Western culture. He presents a theory of pragmatic objectivity and applies it to journalism. Journalism's role in interpreting culture, he argues, needs a form of objectivity that embraces human strengths and limitations.

Defining responsible journalism as situated, imperfect inquiry, Objectively Engaged Journalism is one of the first systematic studies of the ethical foundations of engaged journalism for a media that is increasingly perspectival and embedded in society.

Stephen J.A. Ward is distinguished lecturer on ethics at the Graduate School of Journalism, University of British Columbia, and the author of The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond and Global Journalism Ethics.

Stephen J.A. Ward's profile page

"Ward has a gift for writing books that are a coherent whole and he does so here to perfection. This book will become a watershed for all subsequent work on media ethics that is explicitly global." Clifford Christians, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign