Facts and Truth in Journalism

            Certainly unbiased, fact based reporting is valuable, but it also can’t really exist.  Criticisms against the News Media are often targeted on a lack of objectivity, an obvious slant.  I think the real problem is that our news is presented to us as objective in the first place.  We get facts, usually from a well trusted, status quo source and very little interpretation or analysis.  While this may be factual it is not always truthful.  By admitting to personal bias and opinion I think we could arrive at more truthful news and coverage.

            Some would say that this makes each news story questionable, and I say that that is a good thing.  We should question every news story from so-called “objective” sources just as much as we question news stories from obviously biased sources, like Fox News, or CNN.  To suggest that any news story is objective is terribly misleading. 

I think people are getting tired of it.  Look at the rise of blogs.  The best blogs report news, but analyze it.  They run the facts through the human machine and serve up truth.  As a major bonus they admit that this is what is happening.  They admit that they are biased and offer an analysis of facts.  They are telling you what the facts mean.

This is far more important, to my mind than facts.  Take the famous equation of E=MCsquared.  This is a fact.  But it takes quite awhile to explain the signifigance and importance of it.  By removing the ability for journalists to analyze we rob them of the ability to tell us the truth.  I frequently read articles, consisting of accurate facts and very little analysis, that don’t tell the full story.  I have to stop and think about what these facts actually mean.  Not that I shouldn’t have to stop and think, but a little analysis would make digestion of the facts much easier.

As has been frequently pointed out by many statistics are not the whole story and are quite often misleading.  Facts too are not the whole story.  Analysis eases understanding and can be argued with.  By having a starting point of opinion to jump from we get a head start in forming our own opinions.  Just because we get objective facts doesn’t mean we have gotten the truth.  Sure the US dropped bombs on country A, but what did they do?  What does this mean?

People like Hunter Thompson have taken this to extremes, but on reading his account of the ’72 presidential race one of the people involved said, “It is certainly the least ACCURATE account I have heard, but also the most TRUTHFUL.”  Most of Europe espouses a more truthful, less fact based journalism than America.  The BBC is an obvious exception, but by and large journalists in Europe are allowed their analysis and opinion of events.

To expect or believe that any news item is even close to objective is false.  To represent our news as such is a flat out lie.  By acknowledging and allowing the natural bias of reporters to be presented responsibly we would have a much more truthful and interesting news media.  Let the AP deal in objectivity and let real reporters deal with truth.