Truth?

Truth and Media

What is truth? Who’s to say it is truth? And what role does a journalist play in producing the truth? These are all questions that a journalist must negotiate with themselves to be able to ethically deliver a story. In my opinion truth is multiple things; truth deals with context, truth deals with public discretion, and truth is evolving information.

Context is key when it comes to delivering the truth. Surely you could tell someone that a shooting occurred in your neighborhood this morning. But if you don’t put it in the context of the shooting being a be-be gun and two friends knocking cans down with every shot the person receiving the information is going to get an entirely different story. What you may have said about there being a shooting was technically truth, but put into a different context and the truth gets confused. It’s important as journalists to make sure the context of the story is clearly stated so that the truth being delivered is delivered as just that; truth.

Public discretion of what truth is occurs every day. When people read the newspaper, watch the news, or hear passerby speak of something that happened they decide in their minds which parts were truth and which parts were made bigger for the story. Journalists are supposed to give the right amount of information to allow the public to make inform decisions themselves. Oftentimes this could even mean leaving out a few things that we know to be true because it could bias the story or it’s simply not needed for the context of that specific story. As was stated in the book The Elements of Journalism, “Since news is the material that people use to learn and think about the world beyond themselves, the most important quality is that I be usable and reliable.”

Meaning that news is the way the average person gets information outside of their bubble of a life, and because this is the main way most people get their information it’s a journalist’s job to give them accurate and relatable material that they can then discern for themselves.

Our world is on demand now. Because anyone can get any information they want with the touch of a finger or click of a button it’s important for journalists to get the story out quick. However, to get the story out quick there’s always the possibility of giving out information that may change as the story evolves. Because of the evolving media we live in journalists aren’t discredited for writing or reporting something that later comes out to be inaccurate as long as they again come out with the correct information later. People have become very attached to what is going on right now, so news  and media get the stories out as quickly as possible and then verify new facts later, as long as there is no opinion or bias brought into the story this process is all part of truth in the media.

Ethics play a large role in the life of a journalist, much of that is how to decipher and publish the truth. Truth doesn’t have an exact definition, so each person must decide for themselves what truth is and what they’re willing to publish. For me I deem it necessary to put things in context, keep my bias and opinion out allowing the people to discern things for themselves, and always return to a story if the initial facts were misleading or incorrect.