Our reporting tends to follow the “objective” model at the Charlatan. That is to say, we try to be fair to our readers and sources, and not subjective in how we relay that reporting.

This is the typical model of mainstream journalism in Canada.

We follow it because we think it’s important for the Carleton community to have a news source that can deliver facts and stories as objectively as possible.

That said, it’s also important to have a variety of voices. More views and sources of information are always good, and hopefully lead to a more vibrant and engaged community.

It is true that it is pretty much impossible for people, even the most expert journalists, to remove every scrap of subjectivity in their bodies when they report. Nothing will ever be truly objective, but the point is more to strive for objectivity and fairness.

To use a math example, objectivity may be an asymptote that is impossible for journalists to ever quite reach, but the point is to try. There needs to be at least one voice that tries to be as fair to the community as possible, that you can rely on for news that you can trust, and that’s what we strive to be at the Charlatan.

We do take stances in our editorials every week, as our outlet for opinion-based and analytic writing, but the editorial writing doesn’t influence the coverage going on in other sections of the paper.

So if the Charlatan did have a bias, what would it be?

I like to think that if both sides of an argument think you’re biased, you’re probably doing a good job.

I have personally heard complaints from many people that we are either too pro-CUSA, too anti-CUSA, too right wing or too left wing.

One of the most heated disputes on campus has been the issue of Bruce Kyereh-Addo and his eligibility to be president of CUSA. One of our major articles about his appeal, “Appeal for presidency fails” (https://charlatan.ca/drupal/content/appeal-presidency-fails-0), got reaction from both sides of the issue. People involved with the appeal, on both sides and even those sourced in the article, thought it was well balanced. On the other hand, there were also people on both sides who thought the story was biased one way or the other.

There’s no pleasing everyone.

Overall, if the Charlatan did have a bias, I would say that we are proudly pro-student. Whenever we take a stand in an editorial, we ask: What is best for Carleton students? And that’s usually the side we take.