Impartial news is a core commitment for parts of the news media, including both public service media such as the BBC and some private publishers such as Reuters News. But many other news media, legacy or new, operate with a much more explicit, opinionated, and sometimes openly partisan editorial line. This has long been the norm in, for example, many European newspapers and much of US cable television and talk radio.

In a context of often intense disagreement, where it sometimes feels like we have less and less in common, where social media are rife with polemics, and where some highly partisan news media and opinionated influencers and news creators have built significant audiences, it can look like the public is rejecting the aspiration towards impartial news and instead prefers news from sources that have a clearer point of view – perhaps especially a view that confirms people’s own opinions.

Is that true about impartial news? One way to find out is to ask members of the public about impartial news, and that is exactly what we have done in this year’s survey.

Do People Want Impartial News?

A defining aspect of impartial news is the attempt to abstain from being partial, in the context of news by aspiring to offer news without adopting a particular point of view – in contrast to outlets who have a clear an editorial line. Without suggesting that this exhausts a concept that can be both practically and philosophically elusive and subject to principled challenges, reporting the news while striving to keep from adopting a point of view is an important aspect both of how many journalists and editors think of the aspiration towards impartiality, and of more philosophical discussions of impartiality as a moral principle (Kieran 1998). Impartiality in this sense is not the absence of a clear moral position. It is instead a specific moral ideal. Previous research shows it is not only an abstract ideal, but also embedded in how much of the public in many countries think about impartiality when it comes to news (Mont’Alverne et al. 2023). The latter suggests it is clear and comprehensible enough to use in a survey. This is why we use it here as a gauge of how people think about impartiality in news.

Read the full article about public demand for impartial news by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen at Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.