|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
There are “lies, damn lies and statistics,” there “is no truth only perception,” and sometimes there are pure and simple mistooks… sorry, I mean mistakes!
The truth is slippery at best. With this considered, it’s not so strange that people distrust ‘the media.’ I might argue that errors by doctors have led to many, many more deaths than errors by journalists, but that’s a race to the bottom mentality.
Also, their job is hard, or so I hear.
I’m not saying errors are acceptable, but they are often understandable. As I was advised by an old scribbler:
“If you’re making too many mistakes, you’re working too hard; if you’re not making many, you’re not working hard enough.”
Then there’s perception. Truth is often mistaken for point of view and, in fact (in truth), the truth is often simply a case of majority rules.
If this wasn’t true, Einstein wouldn’t have found the need to improve on work by Newton. I could make a crack about an apple not falling far from a tree, but there’s no evidence Newton was ever bopped on the bonce by an apple, although he probably did see one fall.
In any case, why let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially when most believe it to be true? We’d then have to concede that champagne glasses weren’t modelled on the anatomy of Marie ‘never said let them eat cake’ Antoinette either and where’s the fun in that?
Journalists are trying to input information, sift it, reorder it, angle it for their readers and try (often failing) to present a truth as close to the truth as soon as possible, before it becomes old news. We’re panning for gold in a world of pyrite.
In case anyone is thinking they should give us a break, please don’t! Unlike in the Wild West version of media, known (ironically?) as ‘social media’, we can be held accountable so we should be. Anyway, spinning excrement doesn’t do us any favours.
“These boots weren’t made for walking, the Marquis de Sade never made no boots like these… I know the truth and I know what you’re thinking” – Fool’s Gold, The Stone Roses.
Too true – anyone who’d seek their fortune, or even just their daily bread, in pursuit of truth must be a tad sadomasochistic.
Yours truly (if sometimes accidentally untruthful),
Jon Rawlinson
