Gabbal Posted January 8, 2006 Tamim Ansary (Image credit: Meredith Heuer) News: Fact or Fiction? by Tamim Ansary All I know is what I read in the papers. (And see on TV.) (And hear on the radio.) (Etc.) So what do I actually know? Over the years, experience has made me skeptical. For example: One Friday a few years ago, a group of bicycle activists called Critical Mass decided to flood the streets of San Francisco with bicycle riders to protest the dominance of cars. That day, I had to go across town. I was listening to the radio as I drove along, so I'd know which streets to avoid. The reporter said downtown was jammed and the jam was spreading. Then he named a particular intersection where trouble had broken out. Drivers had jumped out of blocked cars and attacked bicyclists. A melee was raging! I happened to be entering that exact intersection at that moment. No one was tangling with anyone. Traffic was light and moving smoothly. I was listening to live coverage of an event that wasn't happening! I would never have known if I had been somewhere else. With most news, I am somewhere else. So are we all. How, then, can we tell if any particular news is true? Journalists do sometimes get caught making up stuff. My friend Michael Chorost caught one this summer. Chorost is a deaf man with a cochlear implant. One day he saw a news story about a deaf man named Paul Wilson, from Bakersfield, California. Wilson was quoted as saying exactly the same things Chorost had written in his memoir Rebuilt. Chorost made some inquiries. The reporter's story unraveled. Wilson, it turned out, didn't exist. Reporter Nada Behziz made him up and breathed life into him with quotes lifted from Chorost's book! The last few decades have seen quite a number of such stories. Jayson Blair of the New York Times, Patricia Smith of the Boston Globe, Stephen Glass of the New Republic, and Janet Cooke of the Washington Post--all got caught filing news stories that were partly or entirely invented. Why would journalists do this? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Castro Posted January 8, 2006 ^ One motivation might be clan rivalry. Journalists are no more (or less) prone to lying than the rest of society. Who knows. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nuune Posted January 8, 2006 One motivation might be clan rivalry. lool, lets wait till 31 January and we know if the clan system fills that possition perfectly back 2 the topic, maxaan oola yaabeenaa joornaalistayaasha ajnabiga ah, kuweena soomaalida ah ayaaba tusaale inoo ah, oo magaala aan dagaal ka dhicin oranayo eber iyo baaba' dakkan baa lagu noqdey, marka kuweeno waxay beenta u sheegaan aan ogaano markaas ka dib aan u soo guda galno qoladan ajnabiga ah joornaaliistayaashooda Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Baluug Posted January 8, 2006 Does anyone really think the media is telling us the truth all the time? If anyone does, then they should be sterilized and committed to a mental institute so as to guarantee they can't procreate and spread the stup*idity Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Arawella Posted January 10, 2006 News is a powerful propoganda medium. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Castro Posted January 10, 2006 ^ Indeed. But that's only part of the story. Watch or read Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent and find out how opinions are shaped, minds controlled and truth is manipulated to fit certain agendas. A fascinating look at the power of media in the so called free world and how it simultaneously achieves its quest for wealth and suppression of thought. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
