So Much News, So Little Truth
The hot topic this week has been inside information–in the Stewart-Cramer dustup, the Madoff mess, the Seymour Hersh blurtout about a Bush-Cheney “executive assassination ring.” In a 24/7 flood of facts, factoids and fake news, who finds the truth and who tells it?
Barack Obama won the White House with promises of transparency to voters starved for some sense of reality in a world of flimflam and lies that have led to so much social devastation.
Yet truth-telling has traditionally been not the job of politicians but journalists. Half a century ago, as a newly appointed magazine editor, I was baited at a dinner party by the French war bride of a college classmate who was running a tabloid newspaper. “What is it exactly that you do?” she persisted
Since philosophical questions were not on the menu, I answered offhandedly, “Try to tell people the truth.”
“Ah,” she replied in triumph, “the truth! Camus doesn’t know the truth, but you do.”
For journalism, the goal has never been cosmic verities but everyday truth. It still is, but the world has become so sophisticated that we now find ourselves in a muddle over what the meaning of “is” is.
Jon Stewart’s cri de coeur over “business journalism” reflects the loss of that function to what his Comedy Central colleague Stephen Colbert calls “truthiness,” entertaining falsehoods, which viewers of CNBC to their regret took for facts and bet their shirts on.
Their mistake was a bookend to that of Bernard Madoff’s victims who were eager to become privileged “in the know” insiders and now, according to hard-nosed New York Times business reporter Joe Nocera, are looking for someone else to fault:
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3 Responses to “So Much News, So Little Truth”
In the pursuit of truth shouldn't accuracy be the over-arching goal? The use of “accomplices” is charged and not entirely. Madoff was the classic afinity scam. Wouldn't “enablers” and “dupes” be a better comparison for those who lost their proverbial shorts.
I think Stewart's point was that mortgage equity market was like the old phony betting parlor scams. Controlling and corrupting the information spigot keeps the wheel's turning. The trick is shutting it down before the cops, oh wait they're on the payroll….
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The probllem with business journalism is that is covers little about business. Most of it is stock trading journalism with little discussion of the underlying businesses. Buisness radio is even worse since it is mainly day trader radio with investment gimmickery and estate planning on the weekends.
Only on days when Wall Street is close is there any reporting on CNBC about business operations, management, accounting, etc.
Just to be annoying, I would like to mention that there are at least three meanings of the word “is”. One is to assert existence. The universe is. Second is as what's called a copula verb and it hooks one noun with another noun, or a noun and adjective. Grass is green. Cassius Clay is Mohammed Ali. Third is as a simple auxiliary verb and is used to put verbs into different forms, such as “is used.” I've never read the greater context for Clinton's statement, so don't know what he was trying to get out of there, but there are in fact multiple meanings of 'is'.