By ardee, December 9 at 8:17 am #

“Sadly I must confess that I do not believe for one moment that you actually reread Mark and Luke, just as I find you repeatedly post dubious “fact” and report it as smelling like a rose. I guess that is why your posts do not contain footnotes or links to prove such offerings”

Hey, it is one thing to call me “boy”, but now you are calling me a liar also. 

I did reread them, and I confirmed to myself that the important points are intact in both

In addition to the testimony of death and then the resurrection, the renting of the veil is a critically important fact, which I know that you understand the significance of.  If there is a material difference in a critical fact that I missed, let me know. 

I will let the writers have whatever less significant errors their faulty senses might have caused them to have after that, including the fact that they were not reporters, and it probably never dawned on them that the first thing they should do is write it all down and synchronize their stories to satisfy people living 2000 years later. 

I do not feel dependent on the fallible words of men to define my reality.  As Yogi said, you can observe a lot by watching.  I get a lot of my information using 2Corinthians 3.  Also I like to go to James 1:5.  Never thought to provide footnotes.  I could provide other similar references for you, if you thought they would be useful. 

But I do not spend as much time reading anything anymore, but find meditation, prayer and fasting to be far more productive.  The things that are commited to writing are by and large much less significant than the ideas I wish to discern.

Evolution cannot account for why the brain capacity of man is much larger than what is actually used.  Was evolution intelligent enough to plan for the future?  Or was man created to use his brain to meditate ideas far more significant than the finite material creation?  Think big - use your mind for something besides the insanity of petty politics.  There is room in your brain for the inclusion of all the really significant ideas.  Denying nothing, take it all in liberally, and let the Spirit sort it out for you in your dreams.

It is o.k. to live your life not quoting what other men think.  Original thought and inspiration have real value, also finding witnesses who have had experiences is extremely valuable.  Everything that is true is not written, and everything written is not true. 

Ardee is not the judge of what is bullshit and what is not.  Nor am I, admittedly.  But I know what I know, I am who I am, and I have no fear in articulating it in my middle school ways, choosing to use simplicity, small words and direct points without hours of elaboration and proof as the intellectuals would prefer.  My final grade does not come from TDers, thank God.

Oh BOY, Dave.

“You have a real talent for bullshit, boy.”

Perhaps it should have read, you have a real talent for bullshit, boy!

The ‘boy’ is not you but an emphasis. You always proffer opinion as fact, a rather telling character flaw I fear. I guess that is why your posts do not contain footnotes or links to prove such offerings.

Sadly I must confess that I do not believe for one moment that you actually reread Mark and Luke, just as I find you repeatedly post dubious “fact” and report it as smelling like a rose.

Any search engine will give dozens, if not hundreds of examples of discrepancies in the bible, including in the accounting of the crucifixion itself. The works of man are subject to such after all, especially when written down many decades after the fact.

Ardee,

I did reread Mark and Luke, and I notice that there are differences in details.  Both have him crying out at time of death, but one has an earlier cry out of the famous “why have you forsaken me” quote. 
Matthew picks up the slack and carries that quote, so there are still two witnesses to it.  There is also much more details going on in Matthew, such as the resurrection of the saints.  I think Matthew is the definitive gospel story, and the one I read the most when I wass reading. 

Other details are fairly insignificant to the story itself, but another possibly significant difference I note now is that the next morning, the women who went to the tomb saw one angel in one story and two angels in the other story.  I don’t know if that is significant, as it does not change the nature of the story, and the writers were not actually there, so could get that detail wrong from interviewing the women or hearing it second or third hand. 

The extremely important parts of the story are intact in both, the most important being the cry out at death, the tearing of the veil, and the testimony of the centurion, and the hour of death. 

I think overall it is a commendable effort at reporting.  Knowing it was written years after the fact, especially.  And still saying that if deviousness was at hand, a better effort would have been undertaken to synchronize and check facts before publishing.  Leaving it raw, imperfect and human is, at least to me, more evident that it is genuine testimony. 

As to standing up in court, obviously no on anticipated that level of scrutiny at the time. 

Remember the intitial confusion of the Hasan/Fort Hood incident.  There is so much going on sometimes that it is impossible to take it all in effectively, and some take in different details than others for any number of reasons, the most simple being that one detail may not have been audible or visible to one witness where it was to another.  At the crucifixion, Jesus’s followers were not necessarily all standing in the same place, and in the crying and screaming, much may have not been heard or seen. 

You never apologized for calling me “boy”.

Conflicting accounts do not make or break the truth of an event.  It is not unusual to hear two eye witnesses describe an event differently. In my opinion these differences in perception are more evidence of the truthfullness of the accounts, which would have otherwise been more synchronized for a better effect.

Read the two accounts and note the markedly different telling of the tale…Or dont.

I doubt that conflicting testimony is proof of anything but your complete unwillingness to deal with the opinions of others or budge from your own unique intractability. I doubt the police would hold this opinion when interviewing eye witnesses to an event, nor would most folks seeking truth hold such as well.

But good luck with that. You are consistent in your efforts though. That is not meant as a good thing.

Here are two facts:

Richard Holbrooke said Russia invaded South Ossetia.  It was a lie.  Georgia invaded Ossetia, first.  Russia went there to protect the Russians living in South Ossetia.

Hillary Clinton said that Mullah Omar did not offer to turn over Bin Laden to the U.S.  Another lie.  It was widely reported in 2001 by a number of sources including the unquestionable Washington Post.

Next thing, Barack Obama will come out and say, “‘We’ are not crooks.”

They can lie all they want, but once you see through the BIG LIE, all that follows is absurd, inadmissable in court. 
Noam Chomsksy said that governments are really afraid of the people.  A quote by a State Dept. employee in South America emphacizes that point, He said as he sat in his chair in a luxury apartment that overlooked the slums in the hills above the city, “If they ever rose up en masse, we’d have no defense.”

That’s All Folks

Peetawonkus, December 7 at 10:26 am #

“Nope. You still seem to be insisting that a fact is whatever you want it to be. By that reasoning, the perceptions of paranoid schizophrenics are on a par with journalism and science”

Yes, I did unintentionally give the impression that I thoughta fact can be whatever we want it to be.  I am sorry for that.

I am legitimately trying to understand the genesis of fact.  I do often state something as fact, which I had always thought was universally accepeted as fact, and am continously bombarded by critics.

The Holocaust, the Moon Landing, the Crucifixion, on and on, I thought were safe to be in the fact category.  It is only since this economic downturn that I have any time to investigate the thousands of theories there are out there on almost every subject.

I am sorry I even got started trying to figure it all out, and I imagine many on TruthDig, such as ardee and Vulva, are sorry as well.  Questioning is not well tolerated by many, especially those who already know everything. 

There is a lot to be said for heading down to the den, putting a fire on, pouring a beer, putting on a movie and tuning out the insanity of the world. 

Problems can only be solved when there is some sort of consensus.  I cannot create consensus.  I may in fact inhibit it by bringing up “facts” which are unpopular, but which are real to me.  So I accept that and leave consensus to be built by the intellectual crowd, since they seem to be so good at it. 

And I will be heading down to the TV room just after I pick up a beer and read Chris Hedges new article “Liberals are Useless”

DaveZx3
“So, as I now understand it, with my middle-school mentality, I am allowed to carefully perceive and interpret evidence and then, from my point of view, declare it as fact.  And this becomes my fact, because I have perceived, I have interpreted and I have declared.  And though it may be totally different than what you declare, it is still fact from my point of view.”

Nope. You still seem to be insisting that a fact is whatever you want it to be. By that reasoning, the perceptions of paranoid schizophrenics are on a par with journalism and science.

By ardee, December 7 at 8:22 am #

“by noting that the bible was mostly written by folks who were not alive at the time the events occurred , and were motivated by politics within the church. I further note that the two main portions of the bible concerning the crucifixion itself, Mark and Luke, both supposedly eyewitnesses, contain conflicting accounts of his death”

Conflicting accounts do not make or break the truth of an event.  It is not unusual to hear two eye witnesses describe an event differently. In my opinion these differences in perception are more evidence of the truthfullness of the accounts, which would have otherwise been more synchronized for a better effect. 

Anyway, My apologies for using the crucifixion as an example of a very contested fact.  I should have used a less emotionally charged example so as to not take away from the points trying to be made.

I was just trying to state my opinion about how relative to a point of view so-called facts have become.  Where I have always held the word “fact” to be synonymous with “absolute truth”, I am now starting to see this is not the case anymore, if indeed it ever was. 

As Anarcissie states, “Furthermore, if humans are to use facts purposefully, they must perceive and interpret them, connecting them to other facts and arranging them in some order.  They must do this from a point of view, a unique position and set of relations in the world, which is different from every other point of view.  So every fact we know about is related to a point of view (or a composite of several points of view).

So, as I now understand it, with my middle-school mentality, I am allowed to carefully perceive and interpret evidence and then, from my point of view, declare it as fact.  And this becomes my fact, because I have perceived, I have interpreted and I have declared.  And though it may be totally different than what you declare, it is still fact from my point of view. 

Notwithstanding what Volma says in her complimentary history of relativity, and other isms of ill repute, duh’s not included, I am very happy to hear that I can have my facts and eat ‘em too. 

Ardee, I am sorry if I said you were a member of a “boiler room”  I don’t remember saying that, but I am sorry anyway.  But please be careful who you refer to as “boy”  That is not very liberal of you.
I know how irritated you must feel that I can now have my own personal facts.  This will help me greatly with regard to my participation in my daily mental health group.

DaveZx3, December 6 at 3:04 pm

Speaking of spin machines, are you dizzy?

You have a real talent for bullshit, boy. Too bad there is not giant industry specializing in such….oh wait.

I respond to a statement in one of your posts:

Example:  The teachings of Jesus Christ are about as close to fact as can be had 2000 years after the events.  Well documented by multiple eye witnesses who wrote personally on the subject, all that is left is the trust element.  Some trust, others don’t.  So reasonable fact becomes relative and contested.

by noting that the bible was mostly written by folks who were not alive at the time the events occurred , and were motivated by politics within the church. I further note that the two main portions of the bible concerning the crucifixion itself, Mark and Luke, both supposedly eyewitnesses , contain conflicting accounts of his death.

In response to what is simple truth I receive yet another of your childish mouth breathing stupidities about my being a member of some “boiler room”. You should be a member of some mental health support group if only for living a delusional life believing any here buy into your middle school level crap.

Davidzzz:“Anyway, you get totally ripped by the likes of Volma.  You get a sort of ridiculing, where they make fun of your name (davezzz) or your honest opinions, or whatever, just to discredit you and/or your “facts”  It has nothing to do with honest debate or opinion or fact.  What then is it about?”

Honest debate? Oh give me a break, closed debate is closer to the truth regarding your comments…Oh poor baby I called you Davidzzz, how horrible, but truth is relative, in my truth I did not make fun of you, and I did debate you and all I got back was a poor me, whining, your making fun of me, not fair, your not going by my rules that I make up…debate…Davidzx3 is in fact using established rules in math Davidzzz…

“Ellen Goodman, in the above article shows her agenda machine in overdrive as she bemoans the idea that facts are not as important as they once were, but apparently only so-called right-wingers play loose with the facts, according to her.  I wonder what her agenda is?”

David zzz, what is your agenda? Why to you find it so important to bemoan Ellen Goodman????
Truth and facts are really of little value today.

“What you really see, especially evident on sites like TruthDig, is everyone basically seeking to confirm and reinforce their own views.”

Davidzzz, Why are you going on Truthdig, other than to, at this point, discredit the journalism on this site?

“But I still have to keep coming back to that strange position where I say that facts are relative and it is quite possible that my facts are not your facts.”

DZ: Ya duh it’s called relativism, what your talking about is an very old established word, philosophy, thought, recorded in dictionaries, philosophy books, encyclopedias….
Relativism is the idea that some elements or aspects of experience or culture are relative to, i.e., dependent on, other elements or aspects.

Relativistic themes are frequently defended under alternative banners like ‘pluralism’ or ‘constructivism’ (with a particular author’s line between relativism and pluralism typically marking off those views he likes from those he doesn’t). I will use the label ‘relativist’ for all such views, with the understanding that many species of relativism may be plausible or even true. But it is the views, not the labels, that are important.
from: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/

Strange position? really, this subject has been discussed since the time of Plato, your new strange idea is not new, but it’s obvious that you are trying to use this as a argument against Truthdig, Ellen G, while you’re using the old “Relativism and Pluralism” shift, nothing new, it’s been used over and over and over…. My suggestion, is to read/study it…As far as I can see, you don’t really want to debate or discuss you want to be right! Prove YOUR point. Besides that if your strange new theory is right, then we are all at an impasse, why should anyone listen to you, or anyone else for that matter…Who are you, where is your credibility, why should we even debate, comment or discuss anyway, it’s all relative right???You’re right, you have all the answers, so why would you even be hurt, defensive, insulted if someone intensely disagrees with you…I won’t bother with you or this anymore it’s absolutely ridiculous… I just get very irritated with this type of useless negative circular banter, that has no merit of even responding to. But as usual the loud annoying squeaky wheel always gets greased…You (and your com-padres)are why I rarely bother reading/writing in the comment section anymore, too full of trolls…You put it out there, so now you have it, feed back and I am not going to bother trying to spell it out to you anymore than I have…Try reading, educating your mind instead of getting attention by throwing out useless, negative unproductive banter…

Well said, Anarcissie.

If a fact is independent of perception, it must be unknowable.

However, I doubt the existence of such facts.  If the universe is coherent (all parts however defined have some connection to all other parts) then no fact is independent of perception, because the universe includes perceiving beings.

Furthermore, if humans are to use facts purposefully, they must perceive and interpret them, connecting them to other facts and arranging them in some order.  They must do this from a point of view, a unique position and set of relations in the world, which is different from every other point of view.  So every fact we know about is related to a point of view (or a composite of several points of view).

This does not mean that objective truth does not exist but it does mean that claims that one knows or is reporting objective truth must be examined with considerable suspicion, especially including commercial media.

By garth, December 6 at 6:13 pm #

“Namely, that there are more than one side to a story and they should report “both” sides. (As if the old adage that the truth lies somewhere in the middle is old hat.)”

I think Jim Lehrer is just confirming my posts in this thread that facts are relative to your political persuasion, and thus if a news outlet wants to cater to a wider audience, they must report the “left facts” and the “right facts”. 

If they can keep a straight face, they might be able to make a ratings killing and keep everyone happy.
Maybe they will have a split screen, where you can turn the volume up on one side and down on the other, so you can zero in on the “facts” you want to hear. 

Good idea, I wish I would have thought of it.

Peetawonkus, December 6 at 6:59 pm #

“But facts aren’t relative. Interpretations may be, but not the facts themselves”

I will drop my elected position in this debate just long enough to say that I actually agree with you 100%.  Facts are truth by definition.  That said, back to the debate. 

But look what happens when you state what most would consider a fact, that Roman Historians included documentation of the life and crucifixion of Jesus Christ in their respective histories

Anyway, you get totally ripped by the likes of Volma.  You get a sort of ridiculing, where they make fun of your name (davezzz) or your honest opinions, or whatever, just to discredit you and/or your “facts”  It has nothing to do with honest debate or opinion or fact.  What then is it about?

This is how I know we are moving in the wrong direction, where facts are manipulated in favor of spin and agenda.  And if you have nothing intelligent to say,, just ridicule the hell out of the opposition.

Ellen Goodman, in the above article shows her agenda machine in overdrive as she bemoans the idea that facts are not as important as they once were, but apparently only so-called right-wingers play loose with the facts, according to her.  I wonder what her agenda is? 

But I still have to keep coming back to that strange position where I say that facts are relative and it is quite possible that my facts are not your facts.

DaveZx3,
But facts aren’t relative. Interpretations may be, but not the facts themselves. People can deny the facts they don’t like but one of the names for that is “delusion.” There’s all sorts of Holocaust deniers out there. There’s even a Flat Earth Society. The point of Goodman’s article is that facts in journalism are a dying breed due to blogs, etc. That is a point of view I happen to disagree with, not in the least because I think there’s enough factual evidence to prove the opposite. However, she’s not saying that facts are just a exercise in relativity. Insisting that they are sounds like a terribly lost and centerless way of going through the world.

DaveZx3, Whats your point Davidzzzz why does anyone respond to your Jesus theory, where is your well documented history? What does this have to do with journalism? You certainly are not a journalist or a scholar, who are you?...All I hear are twisting quasi-clever words, circular thinking, broken record typing on the internet…Are you nothing but a cause, a program, if this is said then you are to respond by that either 0 or 1? From my own data base of history and documentation you are good at gaining attention, because you’re good (not great) at stirring up, redirecting, confusing, changing issues, and that is well documented by what you have said thus far…Ok David zzzz your it, you are absolutely right, I worship the ground you walk on, yes your the man…. I will say almost anything to get you to stop your irritating, annoying, useless, negative non relevant rants and energy…You win, now you can go back to sleep now….

Peetawonkus, December 6 at 5:22 pm #
“
So…when it comes to what others hold to be true, that’s all relativity and a philosophical ping-pong match. But when it comes to something you consider important and “true”, like the teachings of Jesus, well, then, those “are fact and well documented.”

Here is what I said previously:

“Facts are relative:  If I witness an event, it is a fact to me, and when I tell it to my neighbors, it is a belief to them because they did not witness it.  But they accept it as fact because they accept me as an honest, first-hand witness.  So we can transform our beliefs into facts by trust in the source of the information.  But if some trust and others don’t, then it is fact to some and belief or disbelief to another.  Therefore, facts are indeed relative, and you and I might not agree as to what is fact”

I stated in my last sentence that you and I are not going to agree on what the facts are.  I trust the secular Roman historians who reported the facts of the existence of Jesus Christ, therefore these are facts to me. 

That is my whole point.  A very high level, honored true historian of the Roman Empire reported, obviously after hearing testimony and reading Roman records, that Jesus Christ existed and did some very spectacular things, and yet we still get to debate the existence of Jesus Christ. 

So I have to maintain my position that facts are relative, and my facts are not necessarily your facts.

Jim Lehrer announced the other night that “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” will change its name to “The PBS News Hour.”  In the story he read the principles of journalism that they say they follow.  One struck me as odd.  Namely, that there are more than one side to a story and they should report “both” sides. (As if the old adage that the truth lies somewhere in the middle is old hat.)
I thought the news answered, Who? What? Where? When? Why and how much salt?  The old crack about not being able to have one’s own set of facts, well, that’s not true and not applicable, anyway. News reporting now is getting a narrative not getting the facts.
They are also going to cover more stories, or so they said.  That simply means that they are going take more news of the day and turn them all into vanilla milk shakes. 
Everyone agrees: The economic collapse was a tough break, the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have to fought to get the bad guys, unemployment is, again, a tough break, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela are cruisin’ for a bruisin’, Coke is both less filling and more refreshing, and, finally, to a drum roll played by Mary Woodruff with her arms akimbo, here are the nation’s dead in battle.  They are shown when their names are released and their pictures become available.
Comcast takes over NBC.  The right-wing cranks take over the GE-owned stations. NBC is no great shakes, but Keith Olbermann is at least a spot of sunlight in this, otherwise, den of mushrooms.
Pretty soon it will be, All the News that fit to shit on.

DaveZx3,
So…when it comes to what others hold to be true, that’s all relativity and a philosophical ping-pong match. But when it comes to something you consider important and “true”, like the teachings of Jesus, well, then, those “are fact and well documented.” You go on to say, “All this shows is what this thread is all about, that anyone can spin anything into whatever they want to believe, and facts are totally disregarded by our own little personal spin machines.” You certainly are “proof” of your own words.

This post doesn’t belong here, but it is important and is a fact!  Irving Picard and his firm, Baker and Hostetler, LLP, who are doing the investigation into the Madoff assets, have billed the US government more than $37 million for less than a years work.  And this includes a 10% discount for public service!!  WOW——does the thievery ever stop??!!

ardee, December 6 at 9:22 am #

“The Bible was written, in very large part, far after the facts it puts forth, by men who were not alive at the time of the events in its narrative”

Very subjective language showing your spin machine is active and fully functional.  It is a fact that documentation of Jesus is well provided by writings dated to the 40’s CE.  I do not think this is far after the facts. 

“Much of the bible is political in nature and dependent upon conditions at the time, hundreds upon hundreds of years after Jesus walked. One cannot help but wonder why “true believers” needs resort to such falsehoods”

My point was that the teachings of Christ are fact and well documented.  Extant texts of both Josephus and Tacitus mention this, so I do not even need to call upon your faulty statement that the Bible was written hundreds upon hundreds of years after Jesus walked.  Jesus is well enough documented in Roman history to be accepted as “fact”.  Tacitus was married in the 70’s CE, which according to my math is not hundred and hundreds of years after Christ.

All this shows is what this thread is all about, that anyone can spin anything into whatever they want to believe, and facts are totally disregarded by our own little personal spin machines. 

Everything that is written is a lie or a conspiracy according to someone.  So in the end, we all get to have our own personal facts, apparently.

Peetawonkus, December 6 at 12:51 pm #

“You don’t spend a great deal of time reading what’s been said or written, do you”

Are you saying that what I read may be different from what you read?  I don’t know how that could happen.

DaveZx3,
You don’t spend a great deal of time reading what’s been said or written, do you?

Not that anyone here will read or acknowledge what I have to say, it seems pointless…Just another comment competing, venting, arguing, whatever with the other voices… Commenting and reading the comments has become boring to me, predictable, depending on the agenda of the commenter which is easy to gather after two sentences in…Blah blah blah blah…But I do want to back up, to explain something I said in the previous comment about Truth Dig…There is nothing wrong with Truth Dig, it has legitimate fact based articles..I can’t say that I am interested in all subjects, but I have the Never ending news story, burnout…It seems to only get worse, and I personally cannot expose myself to a lot of it without feeling overwhelmed by the bad news everywhere…Truthdig, Democracy Now, Truthout, Project Censored, Alternet are just a few alternative internet news sites that are wonderful sources of alternative news that you do not get in the mainstream…I have about 200 news sites in my bookmark, from all over the world, with different venues, plus some excellent blogs…I am concerned that we are going to loose some of these because of the economy…Someone is going to have to pay the bills…So anyway, I just wanted to add my deep respect, and acknowledge the education and professionalism that true real journalists have…The people who put down journalists, are just ignorant, arrogant, haven’t a clue….It’s too bad, because without the real journalist, we are just totally doomed….
One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they’re still free. N.A. Scott
“The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty”  Adlai E. Stevenson

It seems to me that Amy G is attempting to point out emotionally based deliberate manipulation for a goal or purpose to control, attain power, some type of gain/agenda ...Yes, Truthdig, and Amy G have their own beliefs and it shows in what they choose to print…I personally am not wedded to any source one source of news…Truthdig seems at times like a impotent spin, saying the same old thing over and over again. There are even social cliques with their own ego collective in the comment section, so what, the RW sites are the same with their own twists? Some news events are easier to fact check than others, from multiple sources…And although truth can be relative. There is a socio-scientific method used for centuries to document events that we define as facts…Can someone lie, distort, and manipulate the truth for personal gain, ah ya…But it’s all we have, without this discernment we wouldn’t have created the wheel, or a chair, because we would be too busy arguing about the reality of it. Religion is based on faith, on belief, and logically since most all religions believe that theirs is the one true faith meaning the others are not, it cannot hold credibility, as a quantifiable fact…What ever happened to common sense?  I think people would benefit by dropping the fear & 2D mind sets…History can teach us so much about the sociological makeup of power structures and the people who enable it…It is a fact, check it out, that the US has used psyops, to influence, control manipulate it’s own citizens…Read about the research on propaganda (father of marketing) by the Nazi’s, you don’t think that Hitler was able to influence people by his charm and looks alone…Another layer of reality is the patterns of the US and the world, questioning why this is occurring and who would benefit the most by this…I see that there are so many intelligent, and plain ignorant people who are so naive/insecure that they couldn’t possibly face the big picture…They want to hold on to their reality, when it is crumbling around them…If you are not part of a shared reality of a sub/culture, you can be more objective when looking at an event. (unless your there to exploit, use or otherwise control the event for your agenda) How many people just say something is not true or real, yet they don’t even know what the subject matter really is….One thing that is clear to me, a divided country against it’s self could never really stop fighting long enough to look at the people who are deliberately dividing them…Why, why is this country being destroyed socially/economically, from within? It’s not, you say, oh really? How so??? Who in the world is Obama, really, is their any open dialog going on with our elected officials, they act as if everything they do is a state secret, and your not part of the state…Does anyone see how this division propaganda actually stops us collectively from doing anything about factual everyday realities we are living in…The fact that our constitutional rights are all but gone, in reality, that the citizens are tax and debt slaves for generations, that the people do not control or really elect their government…That we live in a dream, we really have little to no power, individually or collectively…All the confusion, misdirection, propaganda serves to keep people stuck, spinning their wheels, depressed, apathetic, angry, crazy otherwise occupied…This serves to keep us enslaved, it’s devious, and deliberate…I don’t know why or who exactly but I do know it’s the history of humanity to be ruled, manipulated, used under the guise of religion, political beliefs, monarchs, fascist rulers, (that of course covers all mentioned…)Does anyone question what is going on, and why anymore? Ya, truth is relative, ya we’re all little ego bubble that collect with other bubbles to make us feel the egoistist….Ya ya ya, and yet there is something larger than the ole “Truth is all relative” spiel…

Example:  The teachings of Jesus Christ are about as close to fact as can be had 2000 years after the events.  Well documented by multiple eye witnesses who wrote personally on the subject, all that is left is the trust element.  Some trust, others don’t.  So reasonable fact becomes relative and contested.

The Bible was written, in very large part, far after the facts it puts forth, by men who were not alive at the time of the events in its narrative. Even those segments purportedly written by eye witnesses to the crucifixion itself ( Mark and Luke) contain large differences, you could read this to confirm. One notes that Jesus died crying and railing, the other that he did so peacefully and with compassion for his executioners.

Much of the bible is political in nature and dependent upon conditions at the time, hundreds upon hundreds of years after Jesus walked. One cannot help but wonder why “true believers” needs resort to such falsehoods.

Peetawonkus, December 5 at 3:44 pm

“One of the points on this particular post is that reporting is only as good as its facts. But facts are not something we believe in, like religion”

With the above statement, you are just showing your own little spin machine in operation.  The agenda is to separate religion from fact and assign it to the lesser level of belief, as though this is proof that it has no legitimate standing.

I am not a religionist, but I know when I see something being spun right out of the culture by those who choose that as one of their agendas. 

Religion is a fact, because you can observe people practicing it.  It is the existence of God which is questioned as to fact or the supposed lesser level of belief and even lower superstition.

Facts are relative:  If I witness an event, it is a fact to me, and when I tell it to my neighbors, it is a belief to them because they did not witness it.  But they accept it as fact because they accept me as an honest, first-hand witness.  So we can transform our beliefs into facts by trust in the source of the information.  But if some trust and others don’t, then it is fact to some and belief or disbelief to another.  Therefore, facts are indeed relative, and you and I might not agree as to what is fact. 

Example:  The teachings of Jesus Christ are about as close to fact as can be had 2000 years after the events.  Well documented by multiple eye witnesses who wrote personally on the subject, all that is left is the trust element.  Some trust, others don’t.  So reasonable fact becomes relative and contested. 

History by agenda:  Yes, there is an agenda, so the message of Jesus Christ is relegated into the so-called inferior level of “religious belief” and thus totally disregarded by academics.  You can put up a banner in school “Martin Luther King Day”  but it is illegal to put up a banner “Jesus Christ Day”.  Or even “Merry Christmas”.  I think you have to say “Happy Holidays” instead.  Totally agenda, spin and dark ages stuff. 

The almost complete removal of the most significant figure of history from the academic study of history is an example of how truth and facts mean nothing compared to agendas.  And this is how I know we are not moving forward with regard to truth, but backward, fearfully, into a darker age where certain facts or very strongly held beliefs must be hidden or relegated to a level of superstition and ignorance for fear that someone might fight merit in them.  They are about God, so they can only be mentioned in the closet, and never discussed in public. 

It is one thing for atheists to deny the existence of God, but it is quite another for them to deny others the choice of believing or disbelieving by erasing God from the culture.  This is how you know that atheists are not just disbelievers in God, but believers in something which is actually anti-God.  They are as bad as what they say about the religious crowd, and twice as mean.  The agenda is not to maintain a benign disbelief, but instead to fight to deny information to others.  This is not enlightenment.  And I am not even a religious person.

And this is just one example of agendas trumping truth and fact.  It is rampant on both sides of the spectrum, and is the source of all the polarization going on today. 

I am not just picking on atheists.  We could have discussed the climategate e-mails as another case of agendas taking precedence over truth and fact. 

And by the way, I have not given up, I just took a short time out.

Re: tdbach’s reply to my comment:

SkeeterVT:

While what you say is true, where does that lead us?
Yes, for those with computers - or access to them -
the choice looks like a no-brainer. You can pay $40 a
month for your regional daily or you can get a whole
lot more information online for free. You can augment
that with free radio and television (though not
really free, but since you’ve already paid for it to
watch Cinetrash…). The problem is, most of these
newspaper readers who have jettisoned their
subscriptions and drifting not toward disciplined
news services but toward ideologically-driven blogs
and talk radio to get their news, scewed conveniently
toward their world view.

“Disciplined news services” you say. Corporate-
controlled news services, I say.

Only six mega-corporations own 90 percent of the
nation’s mainstream media outlets today. That’s a far
cry from the time when that same 90 percent of the
nation’s mainstream media outlets were locally-owned
and independently-owned outlets.

Independently-owned media outlets weren’t—and
still aren’t—afraid to challenge the status quo.
When was the last time you’ve heard or read a
corporate-owned media outlet do the same?

Corporate consolidation of media outlets has
effectively killed off investigative journalism,
because such journalism would upset the interests of
the outlets’ corporate owners.

This is yet another reason why Americans—
especially young people—have turned away from the
mainstream media and toward bloggers.

Yes, many bloggers are indeed ideologically driven—
freed from the tyranny of editors. Others, including
myself, are former mainstream media journalists
who’ve launched their own Web sites (including
Truthdig, Truthout, The Public Record, Politico,
Talking Points Memo, Inter-Press Service and others)
and become their own editors and publishers, often
breaking stories that the corporate-owned mainstream
media either fail to or are unwilling to break
themselves.

In the four years—exactly four years ago this
week, in fact—since I launched my own, admittedly one-person operation, The
‘Skeeter Bites Report, I’ve broken two
exclusive stories and jumped on at least a half-dozen
others that were first broken by foreign media
outlets, yet were ignored by the mainstream U.S.
media.

Along the way, the Internet has given me a freedom
that I never had when I working for a newspaper: The
freedom to speak my mind in clearly-labeled
editorials—Not to mention reach a far larger and
geographically vast audience online than I could ever
reach in print.

The fact is, the Internet has become the
written-word mass medium of the 21st century. Even
The New York Times has ten times as many
readers to its Web site as it does to its print
edition.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer beceme the
first major U.S. daily newspaper to convert to an
exclusively online news outlet. I predict that by
2020, it will be far from alone in doing so.

http://www.skeeterbitesreport.com

DaveZx3
“I wish I could find the article I read a few weeks ago that states on good sources, that up to 45% of inmates on death row are there on very poor evidence.”

Even if you could find that article, the point is, you believe it. But based on what? Good sources? What are they? There are no sources so good as someone doesn’t think they’re nonsense. What “proof” is there that article itself doesn’t lie? Is there or is there not a method for determining whether that statistic or any statistic is completely invented?

“Even evidence lies, and juries are not without prejudice no matter how they are selected.” Again, we know that…how? I agree with you, and we know this from history. But what do we do?  Shrug and give up and say, “Well, that’s the way things work.” The point is to make it better.

Sure, we all know China exists. And that we’ve been to the moon. And there is no face on Mars. And the Holocaust really did happen. And yet there are those who insist otherwise. Is it simply a “He said, she said?” I say there are methodologies for separating belief from evidence.

I’m not really refuting most of your claims. It just sounds like you’ve given up. Which I hate to see in someone who’s clearly given a lot of attention to how unjust the world is. For real change to happen, we need people who see the world as it is, without illusions, but still maintain their ideals.

One of the points on this particular post is that reporting is only as good as its facts. But facts are not something we believe in, like religion. My issue with Goodman’s article is that the mainstream media hasn’t done as good a job presenting the facts historically as Goodman fancies it has. Good reporting, like most social change itself, has come not from the inside out but the outside in.

Peetawonkus, December 5 at 2:24 pm

“Do you really think every trial is a lie fest without evidence”

I wish I could find the article I read a few weeks ago that states on good sources, that up to 45% of inmates on death row are there on very poor evidence.

Even evidence lies, and juries are not without prejudice no matter how they are selected. 

I am not cynical about this situation, I am merely tired of it.  Yeah, we all know China exists, even though we have not been there.

But all the major issues of the day seem to be split down the middle.  half believing one thing and half believing the other, and no one budging, regardless of any evidence.  When evidence is produced it is ignored, belittled, marginalized or ridiculed. 

I stand by everything I said.  Everything is image and truth and facts are secondary, if necessary at all.

DaveZx3,
But there are ways to determine the truth in any situation. Or at least the facts. It just depends on whether you’re willing to acknowledge them or not. Do you really think every trial is a lie fest without evidence? If you become locked into a notion that everything is relative and there is no such thing as facts then the end result is bitter cynicism. I’ve never been to China yet I’d be willing to take bets that it exists. We can tie ourselves in endless philosophic knots about “what is truth”...but if it isn’t based on direct evidence we’re left with belief. The important thing is dig for those facts, and insist on them.

I often marvel about how little real truth and facts are valued in an era where everyone gets to have their own personal “truth and facts”.

It is a pervasive concept that truth and facts must be spun through the agenda machine to be twisted and stretched until they serve the ends desired.  It is why there is no trust in the world today. 

For example, everyone gets to decide who is responsible for 9/11, and even if they do have a trial for KSM, hardly anyone will believe the results anyway.  The lawyers spin, the judges spin, the witnesses spin and then the media respins everything, and then we each individually spin it to meet our own belief of who was really to blame.  So the day after the trial is over, you will hear 100 stories come out about how it was a farce and that the real criminals were blah, blah, blah and blah.

You actually never get to know anything for sure.  No story ever ends, they just go on and on and on and on, forever.  Each side continuing to argue their case until we all throw up. 

How many people really shot Jack Kennedy?  Will we ever know?  Did we really land on the moon or did the government make it up?  Even scientists have to spin science results today, because the ends is far more important than the means.  And they wonder why no one trusts them.  There is no trust.  Everything is a lie to someone.  Everything is relative. 

Where is justice in a world like this?  Where does the buck stop?  Who do you go to for the real story?  No one.  You never actually get the real story, and even if you did, you probably would not recognize it, and someone will try to talk you out of it a day later. 

I still think back to the Clarence Thomas hearings where Anita Hill said some really terrible things about the judge.  Here is a law professor at a major college and a supreme court nominee, and one of them is a bold-faced liar.  And in the end, the judge got confirmed and the professor went back to her job.  And one of them was still a flat out liar.  That was not comforting to me, because everyone seemed to just accept the fact that it is the way the game is played today.  You lie like hell, and then every shakes hands and goes back to to work.

If there is to be an enduring historical record of the human race, it will have to say on page one that one of their most predominant characteristics was that they lied and deceived perpetually.

DaveZx3, December 5 at 6:46 am #
“Truth and facts are really of little value today. 

What you really see, especially evident on sites like TruthDig, is everyone basically seeking to confirm and reinforce their own views.”

Two things here. I want to disagree with the first of your assertions but I can’t, really. Truth and facts should be of greater importance than ever. And if they don’t have value, they should. Sadly, there’s no question that Marketing has grabbed the world by the short hairs. This is a time when belief trumps evidence. If ever in history we needed an Enlightenment mind-set instead of a Medieval one, it’s now.

Second, you might well be right about people seeking confirmation of their beliefs on TruthDig. This is, after all, a somewhat left-of-center article and comment site. If you are a Republican or a right-winger, no, you’re not going to find a red carpet rolled out for you. I constantly see righties sneak onto this site and try to hammer home their “beliefs”, none of which are based on evidence. Arguing with them about recent history, the near collapse of the world’s economy, “death panels”, and on and on, or that the sky is not green no matter how many times they pound the table and declare it is only makes them whine eventually that their “opinions” are mocked and they are not treated with dignity and respect.

However, I go to right-wing sites and it looks to me like “everyone is basically seeking to confirm and reinforce their own views.” One difference is the massive amount of hate directed at Obama, at a woman’s right to choose, at anyone who is not an Evangelist Christian, and at Liberals in general. And I’m here to tell you, on some of those sites I’ve been threatened with death because I disagreed. Even though it doesn’t always work and often falls apart, on TruthDig many people make an attempt at civil discourse and are at least willing to bring a measure of facts and evidence to their beliefs.

Truth and facts are really of little value today. 

What you really see, especially evident on sites like TruthDig, is everyone basically seeking to confirm and reinforce their own views. 

Whether it be political parties, mainstream media, or just individuals, everyone declares their own truth and facts.  They then seek to be reinforced by reading only those agreeing with them.  Whenever someone disagrees, they are categorized, belittled, called names, etc. etc.

We have entered the age of absolute relativity.
“What is true for you is not true for me” 

So how can any news outlet deliver truth, except in the most mundane circumstances?  No matter what is reported, it first has to be filtered through our own personal little truth/fact sensors, to be twisted and skewed until it fits our relative concept of reality.  Once it fits, it is added to our other little skewed pseudo-fact/truths to become part of our overall deluded personality. 

We do not deserve truth because we do not truly honor and value truth.  Truth has been dead for a long, long, long time, and now IMAGE IS EVERYTHING, and the image creators are the gods.

Re: Ms Goodman

Quote: “I’m not suggesting that newspapers—once defined as the first rough draft of history—are without errors. But there are prices to pay and corrections to be made and standards to be met. When was the last time an Internet birther ran a correction or lost his job?”

Excellent point.  Where’s the necessary check and balance?  Why is it facts have become “unnecessary”?  The amount of discourse will be EVERY BIT as intense and challenging WITH THE FACTS, as it is simply arguing falsehoods.  So…. who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?  Not the truth-tellers or fact checkers, since all things considered, they KNOW, the proof is in Ms. Clinton’s proverbial pudding. 

” Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the things you can think up if only you try”.......Dr. Suess

Re: johnny franklin

Your comment: ” I am a Dem but don’t trust them either”

You may want to rethink your position, I don’t endorse that in which I think there is no hope…. simply because it’s a fools game.  In this regard, I question your logic.

To be more blunt, would you WILLINGLY give the keys to your house to someone in which you have NO TRUST AT ALL…?

My personal stance is that we have A LOT MORE objective reason to enamor the Dems, than we do the repubs as far as the issue of “trust”.  It’s always good to exact specifics but to take fictitiously drawn hard lines is also a fool’s game.

melpol, December 4 at 12:57 pm:
’... But those found guilty of religious or political violence should be swiftly hanged in public view. ...’

First we’d have to remove them from office, or maybe stop electing them in the first place.

Reactionaries are self-centered egoists who, having achieved a certain satisfactory status in life wish to maintain the status-quo(their particular piece of it) no matter what it costs everyboby else. Those who like to think of themselves as conservatives are of the same ilk but are easily convinced into believeing that they are threatened due to a tendency to accept things on faith thus their anti-intellectual stance towards and distrust of any views counter to those impressed upon them through rote and, in some cases, coercion. Unfortunately, these folks prefer the facile explanations of propaganda to the answers derived from firsthand investigation and inquiry.

The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.
- Aldous Huxley

Check out the archive-
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/publications/

One abiding fantasy is that, out there, somewhere, is “real” and objective news. But how can anything be objective? Everything is done by people who come from positions and places which influence their points of view. Does anyone really imagine that a Gangland shooting is going to be covered the same way by a black, lesbian inner city reporter versus a white suburban male? Even assuming they start with the same set of “facts?”

What Goodman sets up plays exactly to this abiding fantasy. Once upon a time, children, we “real” journalists fact checked our work. Now it’s all rantings and blogs. The “fact” is that MSM has always given certain individuals, corporations, the military and other power structures a free pass. Time and time again, the real investigative reporting has come from small, independent presses (and blogs) that had nothing to lose. Once a story gets legs then the MSM shows up and says, “Thanks, Junior. We’ll take it from here.”

SkeeterVT:

While what you say is true, where does that lead us? Yes, for those with computers - or access to them - the choice looks like a no-brainer. You can pay $40 a month for your regional daily or you can get a whole lot more information online for free. You can augment that with free radio and television (though not really free, but since you’ve already paid for it to watch Cinetrash…). The problem is, most of these newspaper readers who hav jettisoned their subscriptions and drifting not toward disciplined news services but toward ideologically-driven blogs and talk radio to get their news, scewed conveniently toward their world view.

I hope that MSM news organizations find a way to make money on the internet so that we can get straight news (fact checked), but now that the horse is out of the barn, I’m not sure we can get it back. It’s too comforting to get our news from someone who filters out everything that challenges our way of thinking. Look at the success of Fox News.

This universal abundance of information is isolating us to perhaps disasterous effect. We shall see.

Ellen Goodman can bemoan the decline of the daily
newspaper all she wants. But the fact is, the daily
printed newspaper has become a dinosaur in our
present-day media landscape and is doomed to
extinction.

As a former newspaper journalist-turned-blogger, I
can tell you that the REAL reason daily newspapers
are dying is the fact that the Internet is bringing
fresh news that you READ almost as instantaneously as
TV and radio brings news that you WATCH or LISTEN TO.

But unlike TV and radio news, online news has no time
or content limitations. 

The news that you read in your daily newspaper is
HOURS OLD—having rolled off the presses hours
after it’s been posted online.

No one—especially young people who have grown up
with the Internet—is willing to pay to read news
that’s been printed hours after that same news was
posted online that they’ve ALREADY READ without
having to pay for it.

THAT’S the bottom line. And there’s nothing that the
owners of daily newspapers can do to stop it—
Rupert Murdoch’s efforts notwithstanding.

In the end, the only newspapers that will survive
will be weekly papers that don’t directly compete
with either the dailies or with the Internet for
breaking hard news, that often break news of their
own that no one else does and—most importantly—
are FREE CIRCULATION, meaning that you don’t have to
pay for them.

There are millions of Americans that have extreme views, whether political or
religious. They constantly spew hate. Some of them kill cops. Arresting potential
violent extremists would fill our prisons. The murder of even ten thousand
innocents by lunatics should not change our way of life. But those found guilty of
religious or political violence should be swiftly hanged in public view. The
freedom of 350 million Americans should not be curtailed because thousands are
willing to commit violence.

This is extremely funny and disheartening at the same time, reading this article and the subsequent commentary. The irony is painful.

Goodman is a columnist for the Boston Globe and syndicated in lots of papers and other media, including here at Truthdig. She’s an old-school journalist, a true believer in the traditions of journalism that go back at least a couple hundred years. Facts are the bedrock of that profession. Ellen would probably agree that the MSM has fumbled the ball of late in terms of not pursuing some stories as thoroughly or assiduously as it should have (e.g. WMD in Iraq). But, for the most part it gets the facts right, and when it doesn’t it publishes corrections.

The new media of the internet, with its countless “tribes” of opinion one can join in (including this one, Truthdig), is a different game. Facts are far less important here than “truth” – which is really another word for POV. If facts don’t support the point of view, they are either ignored or disbelieved. There’s not even a pretense of objectivity. You’re with us or you’re agin’ us. Some will even make sh*t up – or at least repeat sh*t they read on the Internet if it supports their view, without really checking its veracity. In this world, POV is all. And that’s what Ellen is warning against as a full and complete diet.

The commentary on this article makes her case even better than she does. In every comment, whether it’s a rant about the NYT or MSM in general or about Ellen, the thesis is the same: they don’t go out of their way to support my POV, so they are useless.

I think most bloggers – and even commentators – try to be factual, at least as far as we understand and accept the facts. But there is no objective checker sitting here combing through what we write to say, “Hey, wait a minute! That’s highly distorting the facts. And this statement is not true at all. I wish it were, but it’s not!”

It’s one thing to come to these sites looking for affirmation of our world view and to engage in friendly and not-so-friendly debate. But we write off traditional new media at our peril. Indeed, our democratic republic is growing more dysfunctional by the day, as we grow more polarized into hardened opinion. The deep distrust and animosity that animate both sides is creating a stalemate. And who/what wins when reasonable differences are denied compromise? Money. If principled advocacy with an eye toward political efficacy is no longer possible, you’re left to work on behalf of the highest bidder.

And look where that’s getting us.

i hate to tell you this, but, the left uses propaganda just as much as the right does.

and the right uses PC just as the left uses it.

if you haven’t noticed, the one thing that right wingers can’t understand is the truth. They refuse to listen or believe a word of it. It drives them crazy.

Correction: When the true reporters go, so do the facts. And the checkers.
Its time to take false reporting for what it is. Communisms most powerful weapon, “propaganda”. The right wing has used this method to practically destroy this country. Hopefully we have figured it out in time.
Great article and keep up the good work Ellen Goodman.

That fantasy was ranked in The New Yorker magazine as somewhere between “a belief in Santa Claus and ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ ”

shouldn’t you have added belief in Global Warming to those fantasies? 

“I believe it is appropriate to have an ‘over-representation’ of the facts
on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience.”
- Al Gore

Of course there is always this little gem posted right here at Truthdig by Joe Conason in his latest piece “The Crushing Legacy of Bush and Cheney”:

“Military sources estimated that the payoffs amounted to as much as 10 percent of the cash value of those shipments. So if we spend another $30 billion a year to send in additional troops, roughly $3 billion will end up in the coffers of the Taliban, far more than it needs to buy the ammunition and explosives that kill our soldiers.”

(This little gem is located just above this story on the home page)

Am I the only one who ses the direct contradiction here? First he cites a report from The Nation that 10% of costs for “shipments” goes toward Taliban bribes. That is a very true statement. However, in the very next line, Conason makes the extreme leap that 10% of the revenue siphoned from Afghan shipping companies equates to 10% of total war expenditures. So, according to Joe, 10% of every dollar spent making bullets right here in the USA is ending up in Taliban hands. Or, 10% of the dollars spent training Soldiers about to deploy somehow ends up in Taliban hands. This is a gross distortion of the facts and is on par with Fox’s claim that California is more dangerous than Iraq merely because they are comaparable in size.

As I posted at that story as well, I am no fan of either of these wars, but I’d prefer some real journalism. Ellen Goodman is right to call out the right-wing lies and distortions. She’d be truly classy if she called them out here as well. Conason should go blog for Fox if he intends to publish such blatant inaccuracy, manipulation and lazy journalism.

Call the liars out, wherever they are.

CNN fact checks Saturday Night Live skits!

Does that count as fact-checking?

However, all other stories—“gotta leave it here!”

Newspapers have never been about news.  Their revenue comes from ads.  Hell, the price of each paper itself wouldn’t even begin to cover the cost of the paper or the ink.  The publisher’s desire is to get as many people as possible to look at their benefactor’s ads.  What fills the spaces between the ads need only have the barest relation to truth. In fact, the closer to the truth it is, the less likely it is to achieve what the advertisers pay for.  Stories about rampant and systemic corporate collusion and corruption hardly encourage a “buying mood” or “market confidence”. Instead. whatever will attract eyes to the ads is the crucial determinant, and nothing attracts those eyes like the sensational, the outrageous, whether real or, more often than not, imagined.  Filling the spaces in-between becomes much more profitable when the reams of tax-payer funded “official” pronouncments can simply be dropped, verbatum, in the column-inches.  It’s not about the alleged integrity of the reporters, or their alleged leftward bias, it’s about what the editors allow.  Do we honestly believe, for example, that NBC or any other outlet owned by GE would report on GE’s malfeasance, swindling or corruption, its war-profiteering, its bribes? 

“Americans are too broadly underinformed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world ... Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don’t have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations.”
(Tom Fenton, CBS foreign correspondent)

“The problem the United States faces is that almost all of its invasions violate international law, and sometimes, as in the case of Iraq, in a blatant manner. So how do the political elite and the news media reconcile this contradiction? Simple: They ignore it. It is virtually unthinkable for a mainstream U.S. reporter to even pursue this issue.”
(John Nichols and Robert McChesney)

“[I] never saw a foreign intervention that the [New York] Times did not support, never saw a fare increase or a rent increase or a utility rate increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And don’t let me get started on universal health care and Social Security. So why do people think the Times is liberal?”
(New York Times reporter John Hess)

“The American press, with a very few exceptions:, is a kept press. Kept by the big corporations the way a whore is kept by a rich man.”
(Theodore Dreiser)

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
(Thomas Jefferson)

“Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid. Did you hear that? - stupid.”
(Arthur Sylvester, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, 1965)

“The news and truth are not the same thing.”
(Walter Lippmann)

“The biggest political joke in America is that we have a liberal press. It’s a joke taken seriously by a surprisingly large number of people… The myth of the liberal press has served as a political weapon for conservative and right-wing forces eager to discourage critical coverage of government and corporate power ... Americans now have the worst of both worlds: a press that, at best, parrots the pronouncements of the powerful and, at worst, encourages people to be stupid with pseudo-news that illuminates nothing but the bottom line.”
(Mark Hertzgaard)

Anarcissie,
I agree with you. I remember that as well. The death of any truth in reporting began so long ago that it probably is legend at this point. But we used to have people like Jakob Riis, we used to have reporters like Murrow. At one time we actually had Labor news in this country. It isn’t even so much the outright lies and distortion as it is the sins of omission. I agree with Voice of Truth as well. Good riddance to the old toothless dogs. MSM shot itself in the foot a long time ago and now Ellen Goodman wants us to cry over their bleeding. Not me.

Peetawonkus, December 3 at 1:17 pm:
’... Investigative journalism and good old fashioned muckraking began to die a long time ago, leaving only a fringe of integrity to carry on. ...’

I have to question whether the MSM of yesteryear were ever much more veracious than they are today.  I wasn’t paying a lot of attention as a teen-ager, but after 1960s I remember mostly a steady stream of lies and distortions about the Civil Rights movement, the War in Vietnam and the goodness of the established order.  I think the main thing that worries those of bourgeois sentiment like our dear author is that as of the moment, big corporations and institutions have lost control of the national discourse, not that facts have gone out of fashion.  What were the facts about the Gulf of Tonkin?

This article is a joke, right?  Some sort of satire?  Hell, no less than the NYT plays so fast and loose on “facts” that its made itself a joke. 

What she really is whining about is that less and less people believe anything they read in the fishwrappers, which is causing them to go out of business.  That is her real issue.

More stories are dug up and brought to national attention, both on the right and the left, than from the MSM.  That’s a fact.  It’s not even so much about the spin a blogger may put on a story, its the fact that places like the NYT, WaPo, etc., won’t even report on a story, no matter how big, unless it fits their agenda.  Good riddance.

I would submit that newspapers and the major media television networks eroded public confidence in themselves long before the rise of the Internet. All my life I’ve watched mainstream media serve mostly as vehicles for government press releases or cheer lead the latest war. Investigative journalism and good old fashioned muckraking began to die a long time ago, leaving only a fringe of integrity to carry on. Whatever happened to “Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”? A great deal of the best of modern reporting came, not from the major media, but from small Internet investigators. Beltway reporters were apparently too busy having dinner with politicians to investigate things like Republican corruption and torture in Iraqi prisons. The major media did this to themselves and they have no one to blame for their demise but their own laziness and incompetence.

I find it ironic that the first comment is from one who lies about the posts of others and now seeks to take a moral position on truth.

Great article, but I’m going to be consise for the moment.

Let’s let our “truth-tellers” speak.  Wouldn’t want to “sway” opinion.  Of course we all have been throughly enthralled with our resident and visiting opinionated “truth-tellers”.

Give us another rousing round of YOUR BLANTANT, CONSTANT, UNSUPPORTED “facts” and inuendo.  This one’s a challenge but give ‘er a go ‘round, you’re good for it…... right?