When I was in high school, I was a journalist. And I remember one thing O.C. Guinn, the teacher, (at San Carlos High School, CA) always told us. Journalism uses unbiased reporting. And I never understood how he could say that, but I didn’t know why I thought so. Now, I understand. Writing is, by its nature, subjective. Let me explain.

To be unbiased means to allow no personal opinion into the mix. Writing is, and must be, biased. Please, don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying writers are liars or that bias is bad. Bias is the only way we can write, so it’s fine. But it is a fact of life.

The unbiased person simply states the facts. But that’s the first problem. As we all know, eyewitness reports are notoriously unreliable. Ask ten people who “witnessed” the same event to describe the scene, and you’ll get ten different reports. This happens because we see and report using our personal filters. These filters are influenced by our experiences, expectations, biases, desires, goals, hidden agendas in reporting the event, and so on.

The unbiased person states all of the facts. In a police report, which is supposed to be unbiased, the reporting officer writes down everything he or she sees, as if no detail is more or less important than another. This stance makes sense because the reporting officer doesn’t actually know which facts will turn out to be the one to catch the killer. But they can’t report absolutely everything in the report; they’d be excessively long if that were done.

WRITING MUST BE SUBJECTIVE
Writing is always subjective in that the writer — whether a journalist, a novelist, or whatever — must make choices about the content and the manner of writing, choices that are influenced by the filters. And the result is subjective writing. It can’t be any other way. Let me explore each component of writing.

Content: The writer makes thousands of choices each time she sits down to write. These choices start with the topic of the writing. (In my case today, I’m writing about subjectivity in writing; I could have chosen another topic to write about.) Within the overall topic, the writer must choose that size of the sliver of topic to be tackled, depending on length allowed, audience needs and expectations, and so on.

Within content, the writer must choose the examples to use, among many possibilities, the points to cover, the evidence to use in constructing an argument. All of these choices show the bias of the writer. Choosing to tell a story about little Sally or little Jamal will impact the readers, whether consciously or not. Those choices give away the bias of the writer, even if the writer is trying to be “objective.”

Writing style: The writer chooses words, sentence structure, reading level, technicality level (how technically advanced the readers are), and other considerations, based on the audience’s needs and expectations, as well as the writer’s own abilities to use language. The writer may have chosen to write for a juvenile reader, and will write to that level. With every choice of word put on paper or typed onto to screen, the writer is making decisions, which reveal the writer’s bias.

Form: The writer may have a choice of form or genre to write in. Before I decided to write this post, I had several choices of projects to work on, but I decided to write this post. The form of a blog post is usually (not always, at least with me) shorter than an article, although this restriction really relates to the audience. Younger readers prefer shorter posts (250 to 400 words) while older readers prefer longer ones, which I write.

The writer may be forced into a form, such as the journalistic inverted triangle of old, which is restrictive in the types and placement of information in the article. Business reports have their own restrictions and rules; all genres do, based on expectations of the audience and wider discourse community (everyone involved with the writing, whether reading that one item or not).

So you see, trying to be unbiased might be commendable but really is unrealistic. The writer’s bias is reflected in the choices made, from the words chosen to the genre.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. It’s been there a very long time with no place to put it. Thank you for reading.

Writing is a complicated process, and having someone hold your hand while creating something big, like a nonfiction book, can make the entire task that much easier. My course (coming soon) WRITE THAT NONFICTION BOOK by Katherine Ploeger does just that. Check out ploegersservices.com for information.

Do you want to use this post in your ezine or on your blog? You have my permission, as long as you send notice of publication with a link to katie@ploegersservices.com, and include the following paragraph with links intact in your post:
Katherine Ploeger, MA, MFA, is a writer, editor, teacher, and consultant. She publishes practical, process-oriented information for nonfiction writers and screenwriters on her blog, Katie’s Writing Notes (katieploeger.wordpress.com).