The Truth is Out There?
Mulder’s words ring hollow at a low point in the history of journalism
Marlo Campbell
How do we know what we know?
Researching Exercise Charging Bison and the This Tour Has 7 Days
project, an unexpected theme emerged — the role of today’s
news media.
“The educational process of news gathering
has slowly been replaced by the entertainment value of news gathering,”
says Richard Kellie, TTH7D’s organizer.
He’s also involved with the Truth, Lies and Videotape Conspiracy
FilmFest. The title alone makes me want to tape an X on my window
and see if a cigarette-smoking man will show up to talk aliens
with me.
That said, I think Kellie might have a point.
In Shake Hands With the Devil, his book about the 1994 Rwandan
genocide, Romeo Dallaire describes how he tried to get the attention
of the international news media as 800,000 people were slaughtered.
North Americans instead watched the O.J. Simpson police chase
and discussed Tonya Harding’s role in the attack on Nancy
Kerrigan.
So who decides what constitutes news and what we, the consumer,
ultimately get to consume?
Kellie has some theories.
“A lot of... things get pushed
to one side simply because they’re too complex to be explained
in a sound bite,” he says. “That’s one of the
reasons conspiracy theories arise — the fact that there’s
not enough information.”
He also takes issue with the ‘news’ that does make
it out.
“Most media has been co-opted by business interests,”
he says.
On April 6, the American independent news program Democracy Now!
(you’ve got to love that emphatic exclamation point) reported
on a study released by the Center for Media and Democracy. The
study found that 77 TV stations throughout the U.S. had aired
“corporate-sponsored propaganda disguised as news releases.”
In some, company publicists acted as “reporters.”
Not once did the TV stations tell their viewers that the ‘news’
segment they were watching was funded and produced by big business.
Hmm. Has “news” become just another product to be
marketed to us in between commercials?
James MacKay is a member of the Winnipeg chapter of the World
People’s Resistance Movement. He’s opposed to the
current actions of Canada’s military, and he’s got
some theories of his own about news reporting.
“The
whole role of the media around this Afghanistan question has just
been disgusting,” he says. “It’s completely
shifted from even the pretence of neutrality.”
Which begs the obvious question: can (and should) a news journalist
really be neutral? Is it so bad to have a bias, or is it only
a bad thing when your bias is the ‘wrong’ one?
Let’s use me as an example: I’m a news reporter. I
don’t have a journalism degree. I write for an alternative
paper. I’m a feminist. I don’t run a multi-million
dollar company. I’m white. I’m straight. I have brown
hair.
Do these facts make the stories I present to you more or less
relevant? Should I divulge them to you before each article?
How can you be sure that what I write is ‘truth’?
How can I?
MacKay thinks we should question all information we’re provided
with, regardless of the source.
“You can’t take
anything at face value,” he says. “People shouldn’t
trust us either.”
Trust no one. Now where have I heard that before? |
Uptown
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