STANFORD, CA – This past hour, local Stanford junior Magellan F. Luke typed a sequence of words that he is calling “the most objective article [he’s] ever seen.” The History major, prospective Political Science minor, and overall credible source on objectivity in journalism has pointed to this article as “a shining example of truthful presentation of fact.”
Magellan F. Luke (again, a well-established authority on objectivity given his current enrollment in a course on American journalism), of his own volition and without prompting or input from a reporter, went on to say that “in [his] personal opinion, this article does a stellar job of portraying the reality of what [he is] choosing to say without unduly [injecting the opinions of the reporter or otherwise taking a stand on the issue at hand].”
Not all credible sources are in agreement with Luke’s claims, however. In particular, Magellan K. Flue, local Creative Writing minor and subscriber to both The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, spoke from a comparable level of authority on the subject of this article’s objectivity, saying “this article unfairly throws its weight behind one person’s opinion of the issue, creating bias despite its admittedly fair implementation of direct attribution and quotation.”
Polls indicate that, when an appropriately large and representative microcosm of Stanford society (whose opinions could be reasonably extrapolated to indicate those of a larger population) was asked to offer their opinions on the objectivity of this article, they noted an initial skepticism of its fairness, but were swayed to acknowledge its empirical objectivity given the inclusion of Flue’s conflicting truth-claim.
As of press time, reporters at The Stanford Flipside decline to comment on their personal opinions, asking readers to simply “consider the facts” and “make their own judgments.”
