Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409170007
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARSHALL FISHWICK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
To put it bluntly: We seem to be living in a culture of lying. We even have lies with different colors - white lies, which mean no harm, are much in favor these days. Not so with the off-color lies, such as those surrounding Watergate. It led to our only presidential resignation in history, and changed our perception of the presidency. There are many subsequent Washington near-misses: Just what is the truth about Irangate, for example? Start at the top with two presidents, Reagan and Bush, and work your way down. Pay special attention to a young Marine officer, Ollie North, who lied to Congress - but not under oath. He may well be the next U.S. senator from Virginia.
These are "public lies," and do great harm to the democratic process. Who reports (or in some instances distorts) them? A host of voices chant: the media. Do the media lie - or at least exaggerate? Is the phrase "journalism ethics" an oxymoron? That is the charge made by Paul Weaver in his new book, "News and the Culture of Lying: How Journalism Really Works."
I am always suspicious of people who know how complex institutions "really" work, but Weaver raises some important questions. He is right when he says those who deserve our close scrutiny masquerade behind impressive labels: pollsters, public-relations experts, talk-show hosts, consultants, advertisers, speech writers. Some of their titles are less favorable: spin doctors, lobbyists, tabloid (sleaze) journalists, deceivers.
(Have you seen the computer-generated picture of a live Elvis chatting with Bill Clinton at the White House? Or the scenes in "Forrest Gump" in which Forrest chats with the long-dead Presidents Johnson and Nixon?)
Do the media (especially newspapers, TV news reporters and film makers) get sucked into the traps set by newsmakers? Or do the media make the rules by which newsmakers have to operate? Is the result that many of our news items are fabrications? Fiction disguised as "the truth?" Was Oliver Stone's film "JFK" based on fact, or (at least in part) on fiction? And how many of the millions of viewers considered it "the truth?"
News has become the story of crisis, requiring dramatic telling and responding. Our leaders and newsmakers tend to make every issue a "crisis." This is how Bill Clinton presented his health-care plan. In a famous gesture, he held up the pen that would veto any bill not meeting his answer to the crisis. That gesture will go down with George Bush's famous "Read my lips - no new taxes" as a blunder that weakened his position.
We are too close to the O.J. Simpson "crisis," and the Simpsonmania it has generated, to know just what it all "really" means. But we have a chilling feeling that it is not only O.J., but our whole judicial process, that may be on trial. How many "mock" trials does it take to make the "real" trial anti-climactic?
Of course there are crises - hurricanes, earthquakes, genuine nuclear decisions. But remember what Soren Kierkegaard said: "Where everyone is a Christian no one is a Christian." When every news story is a crisis, no one can recognize a real crisis. Who can believe what? And why?
Especially dangerous are crises brought on by polls and statistics. Mark Twain was right: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. How can a poll of 1,000 people speak for a nation of many millions? If "two out of three" doctors recommend a drug, do we assume that thousands of doctors were asked - or three? And did the three have special reasons for recommending the drug or toothpaste? Is it in their stock portfolio, for example? We end up like a baffled Pontius Pilate, asking, "What is truth?"
Of course we can wash our hands, as he did, and walk away. Not if the government of the people, by the people, for the people is to function in what is often the Misinformation Age. The real and present danger is that we will end up as Aldous Huxley predicted in his famous biblical parody: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye mad."
Marshall Fishwick is a professor of humanities and communications studies at Virginia Tech.
by CNB