We don’t have to be subjected to objective reporting.

At WSU’s Murrow Symposium last week, officials from Al Jazeera America spoke to students about the news network and its straight-news approach to journalism.

Al Jazeera is a Qatari government-funded American news network that seeks to maintain credibility through impartial and accurate coverage, according to their website.

The idea of unbiased, unadulterated news is an interesting one, but unfortunately the idea for such a program is where interest ends. Biased, opinionated journalism is a necessary news measure.

See, initially, I was extremely enticed by the idea of a news program that remained unbiased in its reporting.

With a liberal MSNBC, conservative FOX News and a CNN whose allegiance presumably belongs to ratings, I couldn’t wait to introduce a new journalism approach to my viewing catalogue.

I sat down to watch what I had been primed to think would be a groundbreaking program.

Alas, about 30 minutes into my viewing session, which I will never get back, my eyelids were heavier than the on-screen elderly reporter’s makeup.

Al Jazeera America’s broadcast is boring. I mean, it’s nearing the C-SPAN grade of boring. At least, that’s what I thought before I actually watched C-SPAN.

I watched C-SPAN.

The program featured a heated CBO budget scoring debate between Republic Rep. Rob Woodall and Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen, equipped with backhanded compliments, animated body language and a crop of imaginatively entertaining charts.

Now, I can say I would honestly rather watch C-SPAN than the unbiased news casting of Al Jazeera America. Those representatives on C-SPAN have a surprising knack for comedic timing.

The impartial reporters of Al Jazeera, though, lack such qualities, or any qualities beside those of forming cohesive, factual sentences that explain exactly what’s happening with little narrative and almost no detectable opinion.

Like the majority of Americans, I admit to leaning in the direction of a specific political party.

42 percent of Americans at least lean Republican while 47 percent lean Democrat, according to the most recent Gallup Poll. The prominence of today’s partisan news television can be attributed to these statistics.

I’m finding it increasingly understandable that Al Jazeera America garners only 13,000 viewers per day, according to a report by the New York Post.

With political ideologies on hand, I want to see political stories presented with some sort of approval or disapproval. Those sentiments often come backed by motivation and reasoning behind such support or opposition.

These reservations often give way to inspired narrative, driven debate and fluctuating, emotional voices which I find to be essential in holding my interest.

When I surf the cable channels for coverage of Obama’s newly signed wage gap executive orders at the time of the signing, I want MSNBC to champion the bill, Fox News to bash it, and CNN to abort flight 370 momentarily and simply report the signing happened, which apparently is a stretch.

I realize what I don’t want to see is a single monotonous correspondent or news anchor to summarize the order and briefly cover both parties’ stances. There’s no heart in that. I want to hear why one side’s opinion is law and the other’s falls flat.

Al Jazeera America, which I’m using as a reference point for all unbiased, straight-talk news, is very informative, but that’s all it is.

Long, textbook-based lectures from one of my professors are generally informative, but they’re also very boring and difficult to focus on for the length of the class.

Applying this strictly factual presentation, free of bells and whistles, to television news makes for an exceptionally snooze-inducing broadcast that fails to keep my attention.

If I want a non-finger-pointing list of current world news, I’ll check @Reuters or @BreakingNews on Twitter, like regular people. Then I’ll flip to MSNBC and watch them ridicule or praise those headlines.

Either way, I’m sure there’ll be lots of heated debate, snarky comments and maybe even some name calling. Just the way I like it.

– Fletcher Bailey is a junior communication major from Seattle. He can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.