03-22-2009, 03:29 AM
As a famous bad guy said to a famous good guy about 2,000 years ago, "But what is truth?"
Without getting too existential, I don't believe in "absolute truth". The truth really is in the eye of the beholder, whether that's the Tribune-Herald, the NY Times, MSNBC, FOX, Hustler, or the local bloggers.
As I said above, nobody is without a point of view, meaning that everybody (and "everybody" includes corporations and those who work for corporations) has a set of filters, a set of values, a set of prejudices, a set of blind spots, etc. These things affect the way we all see the "truth", then in turn, the way we present what we see. An adjective here or there, even a simple punctuation mark, can make a subtle difference in the way a topic is presented. Back in the day, and with a straight face, most of the ivory-towered news outlets claimed to be "independant", "impartial", etc. Today we know that there really is no such thing. As consumers of information in the Information Age, we all get to pick and choose our sources.
For me, if I return over and over again to the same sources or information to the exclusion of all others, it's likely I'll get a myopic view of the world. Or at the very least, I'll tend towards adopting the point of view of whichever source I have chosen. Chicken-and-egg, maybe I'll gravitate towards the sources which match my own point of view. If I mix it up, expand my horizons, browse around, and take everything with a grain of salt with the knowledge that everybody has a point of view, then it's likely I'll be about as well-informed as it's possible for me to be. Hopefully.
P.S. This is not a slam at Aaron, Damon, or any of the other bloggers. I've read some of their stuff, and they seem like regular Joe's going about their business, reporting whatever crosses their radar. I hope bloggers recognize they're only human, also, and come with their own point of view, their own limitations. It's certainly not a bad thing, IMHO, to have more eyes and ears out there acting to keep our local government officials on the up-and-up, and the local bloggers, from what I've seen, have done that on occasion, and sometimes pretty well, like during the last election cycle. Thanks, guys, for that.
Aloha! ;-)
Without getting too existential, I don't believe in "absolute truth". The truth really is in the eye of the beholder, whether that's the Tribune-Herald, the NY Times, MSNBC, FOX, Hustler, or the local bloggers.
As I said above, nobody is without a point of view, meaning that everybody (and "everybody" includes corporations and those who work for corporations) has a set of filters, a set of values, a set of prejudices, a set of blind spots, etc. These things affect the way we all see the "truth", then in turn, the way we present what we see. An adjective here or there, even a simple punctuation mark, can make a subtle difference in the way a topic is presented. Back in the day, and with a straight face, most of the ivory-towered news outlets claimed to be "independant", "impartial", etc. Today we know that there really is no such thing. As consumers of information in the Information Age, we all get to pick and choose our sources.
For me, if I return over and over again to the same sources or information to the exclusion of all others, it's likely I'll get a myopic view of the world. Or at the very least, I'll tend towards adopting the point of view of whichever source I have chosen. Chicken-and-egg, maybe I'll gravitate towards the sources which match my own point of view. If I mix it up, expand my horizons, browse around, and take everything with a grain of salt with the knowledge that everybody has a point of view, then it's likely I'll be about as well-informed as it's possible for me to be. Hopefully.
P.S. This is not a slam at Aaron, Damon, or any of the other bloggers. I've read some of their stuff, and they seem like regular Joe's going about their business, reporting whatever crosses their radar. I hope bloggers recognize they're only human, also, and come with their own point of view, their own limitations. It's certainly not a bad thing, IMHO, to have more eyes and ears out there acting to keep our local government officials on the up-and-up, and the local bloggers, from what I've seen, have done that on occasion, and sometimes pretty well, like during the last election cycle. Thanks, guys, for that.
Aloha! ;-)
Aloha! ;-)