Quotes by Michael Schudson

“Chances are that neither the client nor the agency will ever know very much about what role the ad has played in sales or profits of the client, either short-term or long-term.”

“Sales may lead to advertising as much as advertising leads to sales.”

“If advertising is not an official or state art, it is nonetheless clearly art.”

“Advertisements ordinarily work their wonders, to the extent that they work at all, on an inattentive public.”

“If there are signs that Americans bow to the gods of advertising, there are equally indications that people find the gods ridiculous. It is part of the popular culture that advertisements are silly.”

“American advertisers rely on essentially illogical approaches to determine their advertising budgets.”

“It is very likely that many firms spend more on advertising than, for their own best interests, they should.”

“Advertising is much less powerful than advertisers and critics of advertising claim, and advertising agencies are stabbing in the dark much more than they are practicing precision microsurgery on the public consciousness.”

“Most criticism of advertising is written in ignorance of what actually happens inside these agencies.”

“Advertising generally works to reinforce consumer trends rather than to initiate them.”

Objectivity, in this sense, means that a persons statements about the world can be trusted if they are submitted to established rules deemed legitimate by a professional community. Facts here are not aspects of the world, but consensually validated statements about it.

But into the first decades of the twentieth century, even at the New York Times, it was uncommon for journalists to see a sharp divide between facts and values. Yet the belief in objectivity is just this: the belief that one can and should separate facts from values. Facts, in this view, are assertions about the world open to independent validation. They stand beyond the distorting influences of any individuals personal preferences. Values, in this view, are an individuals conscious or unconscious preferences for what the world should be; they are seen as ultimately subjective and so without legitimate claim on other people. The belief in objectivity is a faith in facts, a distrust of values, and a commitment to their segregation.

It should be apparent that the belief in objectivity in journalism, as in other professions, is not just a claim about what kind of knowledge is reliable. It is also a moral philosophy, a declaration of what kind of thinking one should engage in, in making moral decisions. It is, moreover, a political commitment, for it provides a guide to what groups one should acknowledge as relevant audiences for judging ones own thoughts and acts.

Objectivity is a peculiar demand to make of institutions which, as business corporations, are dedicated first of all to economic survival. It is a peculiar demand to make of institutions which often, by tradition or explicit credo, are political organs. It is a peculiar demand to make of editors and reporters who have none of the professional apparatus which, for doctors or lawyers or scientists, is supposed to guarantee objectivity.

Buy me and you will overcome the anxieties I have just reminded you of.