Hmmmm. T.A. = A.T. ???
If there are no truths, then all journalists are just propagandists.
The problems inherent in this article are made worse because the author's denial of the existence of truth is in the context of a response to Terry Anderson, who spent half a decade as a captive of terrorists because he was trying to tell the truth about events in the war he was covering as a war correspondent.
Let's be clear here. The author isn't just saying reporters need to avoid taking sides in a controversy by presenting both sides’ version of the truth and letting our readers make up their own minds once they have the facts. (That would be entirely appropriate.) He's not just saying truth is often hard to determine — after all, it's often painfully evident that both sides may really believe they're right and neither is deliberately trying to cover up the truth.
What the author is saying is much more serious. After quoting a number of modern philosophers and other commentators who question whether truth exists, he comes to the conclusion that “Good journalism starts with the truth – about the many guidelines the journalist is restricted by. Good journalism starts with being humble – about the fact that there is no such thing as truth. Or as Richard Feynman, the physicist, put it: ‘we never are definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong.’ Let's start with this. It would be more than enough. Right, Terry?”
This approach to journalism, while claiming to be “humble,” is in fact coming perilously close to saying all news is propaganda because, as the author points out, editors at the Atlanta headquarters of CNN and the Qatar headquarters of al-Jazeera may not want some stories reported.
We all know bad editors and bad publishers exist, and sometimes good editors and good publishers make bad decisions.
To go beyond admitting that obviously true fact and argue that there is no such thing as truth risks turning reporters into propagandists.
I fully grant that truth is sometimes really hard to find. I fully grant we sometimes make serious mistakes in trying to find it. Even beyond that, I fully grant that as reporters, in many (probably most) cases it is our job to present both sides’ versions of the truth, not to take sides on which of those versions is true. Obvious exceptions include things like Nazi death camps, the Soviet gulags, the devastation caused by Mao's Red Guards, or modern horrors like North Korean prisons, where governments are deliberately committing horrible atrocities and often trying to hide their violations of human rights from public view. Any right-thinking moron with half a brain should be able to see that mass murder and torture of people who disagree with their government is wrong — but let's not forget that Stalin was effective in convincing too many Western journalists that he was greatly improving his country during some of the worst years of his terror campaigns, and Hitler and Mao did much the same thing with their own people.
To deny that truth exists at all is to deny the entire purpose of journalism. If we're not in the business of trying to tell the truth, we don't deserve the protections of the First Amendment because we're no better than the corporate or government PR people who we're supposed to be holding accountable for their actions.
Journalists shouldn’t be worried about ‘Truth’. They should be worred about ‘Facts’. Give us the facts & we’ll figure out the truth.
Journalism isn’t about Truth-—Religion is. Journalism is about FACTS! And they get that wrong or spin it most of the time. There can be true facts.
Pathetic lazy propaganda machines—most so called journalists who refuse to do leg work—why I dumped all newspapers and use people on the internet who have proven to care about the “truth” and admit bias and apologize when they do misquote or make mistakes—as all people will.
Again, this was a liberal NPR news director admitting this, on NPR. It was not some wild-eyed, far-right-wing conspiracy theorist.
Evan Thomas, an editor at Newsweek (soon to be defunct) suggested that liberal bias in the press was worth 5 - 8 percent of the votes in favor of the Democrats.
This is a problem that needs to be addressed.
To the deceived truth is fiction and fantasy becomes reality... To the deceived, hell will not be denied and truth will become all too real, and the fear of the numinous will burn in their conscience forever.
Democracy is Mob Rule by mobsters...
No democracy has ever been democratic..
Democracy was, is and will continue to be a LIE..
It is a scam by socialists..
Socialists make problems by givernment action then send the givernment to fix the problems they created..
Because democracy is a lie..
Democracy is indispensable to socialism.
The goal of socialism is communism. -V.I. Lenin
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism .-Karl Marx
Is it true....that there is no such thing as truth?
Democracy simply means that if I can get enough people to side with me I can screw over everyone else with impunity, until they get enough people to side with them and screw me over.