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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Facts Or “Truth?”
Jeff Jarvis has apparently made his choice:
On this week’s Meet the Press, Russert replays Broussard’s emotional appearance for him and then goes after him on the facts. The woman who died was in a nursing home where the owners have been indicted for neglecting and not evacuating their residents. So, Russert says, that’s not the feds’ fault, huh? Russert gets up on a factual high-horse but Broussard puts him right back in his place, explaining that he learned what he said from his staff and that he certainly did not cross-examine his colleague about the mother he could not rescue, who had just died. That does not make the story of neglect of the entire city of New Orleans by government at all — all — levels any less vital.[...snip...]
Too much of journalism is turning this way today: If we nitpick the facts and follow some rules some committee wrote up, we’ll be safe; we’re doing our jobs. No, sir, our job is to get more than the facts. Anybody can get facts. Facts are the commodity. The truth is harder to find. Justice is harder to fight for. Lessons are what we’re after.
Tim Russert lost sight of the story because he was embarrassed that bloggers caught a guest on his show with facts that were wrong. Russert’s proper response should have been to fix those facts quickly and clear but still pursue the real story. Instead, he chose to shoot the messenger who embarrassed him with the bloggers. He lost sight of his real mission.
How curious. All this time, your Curmudgeon has assumed that the advantage "professional journalists" wield over us pajama-clad amateurs is that they're more industrious at amassing and trustworthy at verifying the facts. Wasn't that the Main Stream Media's original claim of superiority over the Blogosphere?
Jarvis's mission statement:
No, sir, our job is to get more than the facts. Anybody can get facts. Facts are the commodity. The truth is harder to find. Justice is harder to fight for. Lessons are what we’re after.
...is capable of only a few interpretations:
- Facts are irrelevant to "truth," "justice," and "lessons";
- "Professional journalists" already know enough facts to know the "truth," so they need not be overly concerned about their mistakes and mis-citations;
- A fact that would countervail the effective conveyance of an important "truth" to the news-consuming public should be effaced in service to that higher end;
- Some persons, "professional journalists" noteworthy among them, possess the privilege of distorting the facts in service to a pre-determined "truth";
- It's another privilege of "professional journalists" to assist persons deemed "co-champions of truth and justice" in impressing their "truths" upon the public, even at cost to the conveyance of accurate facts;
- At any rate, an attempt such as Tim Russert's to probe the veracity of a "co-champion of truth and justice" such as Aaron Broussard is a journalistic sin.
Was that enough sneer quotes for you?
Facts are prior and superior to Jarvis's notion of "truths." Facts are the raw material from which we must determine:
- What works and what doesn't;
- Who is committed to what objectives;
- Whether a particular moral proposition -- an assertion about justice -- is compatible with the immutable laws of reality.
We non-"journalists" fancy that we're capable of deducing or inducing matters of truth and justice -- Jarvis's "lessons" -- from an adequate supply of verified facts about the world as it turns. Only facts make it possible for us to do so. To be deprived of trustworthy facts puts us at the mercy of those with axes to grind.
Apparently, by Jarvis's standards, it's the "professional journalist's" mission to see to it that his "truths" are the "lessons" we hoi polloi absorb, and to prevent any inconveniences from being done to them by mere grubby facts.
Persons who consider the media's proper mission to be the presentation of well-verified facts about world events to a readership capable of reaching its own conclusions about wider "truths" should print copies of Jarvis's statements and keep them near to hand. For, blogger or not, Jarvis has chosen sides against the very persons he claims as a "professional journalist" to be serving: the reading public.
Comments
And what would happen when the “truths” the media speaks no longer jives with Jarvis’ crew?
What if, just for example, the Old Media suddenly sides 100% with the Republicans? Would they still be speaking the “truth” to Jarvis et al?
Could the Old Media then cheerfully ignore any facts that cast light on Republican blunders? Me thinks Jarvis would be wailing about the loss of facts in favor of propaganda at that point.
Posted by Rusticus on 09/28/2005 at 04:10 PM“Ask for mercy. Justice might be lethal for you.” - Ironbear
Shouldn’t be, but I’m dissapointed in Jeffry. I guess I should have gone with my long ago cyynical gut when it looked at his blog and told me “Once a ‘journalist’, always a ‘journalist’”. So much for all of his supposed earlier railings against media-as-gatekeeper, hey? Reckon they just weren’t keeping the “right” gates.
Give me facts - I can figure out on my own what is Just.
Give me data - I can make my own choices from it.
Give me information - I can form my own damned judgements.
Give me the “who, what, when, where, how, and sometimes why” - I can write my own damned “narratives”.
Damn, Francis. This entire thing that’s coming up on just how much of what was “reported” during and after Katrina was unpleasant fiction just keeps on pissing me off to the white hot killing mad stage. I thought I was too damned jaded to get this angry about this stuff any more, and too damned old to be disillusioned any farther.
Know what I mean?
Posted by Ironbear on 09/29/2005 at 09:01 PMFor all the good it’s going to do, I had a few choice words for Jeff and Jay over there.
Heh. Nuthin’ like peeing into the wind on occassion. ;]
Posted by Ironbear on 09/29/2005 at 11:56 PM
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