Quotes, or interpreting facts?

Yahoo! News - Bush Twists Kerry's Words on Iraq

I think there are two problems here, really.

The first one is, there is a significant amount of "editorializing" going on in the headline writing, and the writing of the article.

Why do I say that? Because they are "spinning" the story to be negative, and then adding a counter segment about Kerry to provide "balance."

The other issue is that, what is being reported as "twisting his words" is not, really. Well, no more than the writer of the article was doing. Bush, and Kerry, were interpretting what the other said, getting at what they believe the meanings of their opponents words were. That is not the same as quoting.

Of course, writers do that all the time in these stories, telling us what was said, and what it "Means." Perhaps this is just professional jealousy, on the part of reporters? They feel only they can "interpret" for us?

Neither side lied. At least not in THIS story.


ADDENDUM: One of the students has pointed out that, according to the community newsletter found at: http://www.chevychasesection3.com/pdf/may2003.pdf, the author of the article in question has ties (marital) to the Clinton Administration.

"Jen and Roger Ballentine ... Jennifer, using her work-world name of Jennifer Loven, is a White House reporter for the Associated Press and Roger is president of Green Strategies, Inc., a consulting firm he started two years ago after serving as chairman of President Clinton's White House Climate Change Task Force. "

So, she is a White House reporter, which would explain why she writes at great length about what Bush has said, and has ties to the left, which might explain the "twist" she puts on the "twist."

Recommendation: Read Goldberg's book Bias. I recommended it before, and I do so again.

The "false" documents

I read something today that captured my eye.

An adroit observer on Yahoo noted that, had it not been for the rather inept way the letters were (apparently) forged, we might have never known them to be false.

Interesting. The observer continued: " Would these documents have been considered authentic had their been no blunders in word processing or in terminology (interestingly enough, they still have not been proven false, merely unconfirmable)?"

This begs the question, as we travel the highways and the byways of the internet, and this new "(dis)information age." Are we now seeing the beginnings of what sci-fi has predicted for so long? Are we entering an era when Truth can no longer be shown through documentation?

If anyone remembers the episode from Star Trek TOS (The "original show") where a crewmember attempts to get even with Capt Kirk, the most interesting aspect of the show in my mind has always been the idea that someone can falsify a visual record, in this case, a video recording, to portray something that never happened. With the digital age, and the computer animations we have seen ever since Forest Gump, we may be entering an age of true situational relativism and truth.

Wittgenstein opened the debate when he first proposed the "problem of induction." That, simply put, says that we can never actually prove anything to be true by induction since we cannot possibly perceive "all instances" of anything. The classic example is the statement "All swans are white." Until you have viewed all swans, this statement cannot be proven true, and in fact, until you have seen all sides of all swans, you cannot know that all swans are "all white."

The next step goes even further. You cannot accept that which you yourself have not perceived, so unless it is you that has perceived the swans, you cannot make any statements of knowledge, or truth, whatsoever.

Professor Karl Popper answered this with his concept of "falsifiability"--a concept familiar to anyone who has taken a (properly taught) statistics course. Harken back to your intro to stats, and remember if you will, you can never "prove" the hypothesis. You can disprove, or fail to disprove. That is Popper's legacy (in a tiny, tiny nutshell.)

Perhaps we are entering a new era. An era where the media, the bastions, nay the defenders of truth, cannot be trusted. In this instance they cannot be trusted to check their facts. Then again, is that actually what happened?

Where you there? Can you "know" what happened?

Homework: Determine for yourself if "truth" is a certainty. Please--share your views. We all grow through these thought exercises.