Peter Bassett: From Impartiality to Instruction - How Journalism Rewrote Its Own Rules

For most of the 20th century, journalism operated on a simple but demanding premise: tell the public what is known, what is disputed, and who is arguing what — then step back. Readers were treated as adults, capable of weighing evidence and reaching their own conclusions.

That settlement has quietly collapsed.

It has been replaced by a new doctrine in which journalism no longer merely reports contested issues but declares certain debates closed, certain views illegitimate, and certain conclusions morally mandatory. Nowhere is this shift clearer than in climate coverage — not because climate science is unimportant, but because it has become the test case for a much broader redefinition of journalism itself.

When Impartiality Became a Liability

In January 2020, media ethicist Denis Muller wrote in The Conversation that traditional media impartiality on climate change was “ethically misguided and downright dangerous”. His argument was explicit: once a topic is deemed to pose “harm”, editors are not only entitled but obliged to exclude dissenting views — even if those views are scientifically credentialled or policy-relevant.

Muller cited The Conversation and Guardian Australia approvingly for adopting zero-tolerance approaches to what they label “denialism”, framing this not as censorship but as ethical responsibility. The long-standing journalistic principle — present competing claims, test them, and let readers decide — was dismissed as outdated, even reckless.

This was not a matter of tone or emphasis. Journalism was redefining its own purpose.

From Ethical Theory to Editorial Practice

This shift did not remain abstract. It moved quickly from theory into newsroom decision-making.

For example, with unusual candour, Stuff’s then editor-in-chief Patrick Crewdson said in 2018 the organisation would no longer give space to what he described as “debunked denialism”. More revealing still was his description of intent: 

“We just want to really pound away at climate change coverage on a regular basis. Increase the intensity of it. And to make the problems of climate change feel urgent and tangible and unignorable.” 

This is not the language of inquiry or sceptical reporting. It is the language of campaigning. Climate change coverage is framed not as a contested public issue requiring scrutiny, but as a moral imperative requiring repetition, escalation and exclusion.

The Rise of “Constructive” Journalism

That editorial posture has since been formalised through movements such as “constructive journalism”, championed by institutions like the Constructive Institute in Denmark and increasingly influential across Western newsrooms.

The vocabulary is instructive. Journalists are encouraged to:

• “educate” audiences
• “navigate sceptic audiences”
• avoid language that may present a “mental barrier”
• adopt terminology that advances “solutions” and “hope”

In this framework, journalism no longer exists primarily to test claims, surface disagreement or expose uncertainty. It exists to guide. The journalist becomes a translator, a facilitator — and ultimately a manager of public belief.

Readers are no longer citizens to be informed, but audiences to be handled.

In New Zealand, this transformation has occurred with remarkably little public debate.

Some outlets now state their position explicitly. Stuff, for example, says it welcomes debate about responses to climate change but “will not provide a venue for denialism or hoax advocacy” — either in reporting or in user comments. That is not a moderation guideline. It is a declaration of editorial boundaries that pre-emptively excludes whole categories of argument.

Other major outlets lack similarly blunt policy statements. However, the New Zealand Herald and other media organisations have signed up to the global Covering Climate Now initiative and launched their own climate projects.

The practical outcome is much the same. Certain perspectives simply do not appear, except as caricature or cautionary example. Enforcement is cultural rather than codified — which makes it easier to deny and harder to challenge.

This is a familiar New Zealand pattern: major institutional shifts introduced not through legislation or democratic consent, but through professional norms, imported frameworks and internal guidelines described as “best practice”.

The Treaty Parallel: Consensus as Closure

The same journalistic logic now governs Treaty reporting.

Interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi — once openly debated across law, history, economics and politics — is increasingly treated as settled doctrine. Alternative readings are not merely contested; they are framed as illegitimate, harmful or morally suspect. Disagreement is recast as denial.

The pattern mirrors climate coverage precisely:

• invoke expert consensus
• elevate moral urgency
• label dissent as dangerous
• close the debate

Complex constitutional questions — about sovereignty, representation, equality before the law — are reduced to a single authorised narrative. Legal uncertainty becomes moral certainty. Policy preference is reported as historical fact.

Journalists insist this reflects respect for evidence. In practice, it reflects the same editorial decision already made in climate reporting: some conclusions are deemed too important to interrogate.

What Was Lost

Defenders of this approach insist it reflects respect for audiences’ intelligence. In practice, it reflects a collapse of trust.

Editors of the Harold Evans generation did not simplify language because they thought readers were stupid. They did so because newspapers were generational institutions, written to be accessible to future readers as well as current ones. Clarity was both an ethical discipline and a commercial strategy.

Today’s media has inverted that logic. In seeking approval from a narrow, credentialed, urban audience, it has sacrificed both mass readership and long-term credibility. It tells people not only what is happening, but how they should feel about it — and increasingly, which views are unacceptable to express at all.

From Climate to Everything

Climate journalism did not cause this transformation. It exposed it.

Once editors accept that some issues are too important for open debate, the principle spreads. Today it is climate. Today it is the Treaty. Tomorrow it will be biology, speech, law or democratic structure itself.

The mechanism never changes: invoke harm, declare consensus, close discussion.

A press that no longer tolerates dissent is not protecting democracy from misinformation. It is protecting itself from accountability.

That should concern anyone who still believes journalism exists to inform citizens — not to instruct them.

Peter Bassett is an observer of  media, politics and public institutions, writing on how narrative replaces scrutiny.