Posted on 01/10/2004 7:34:24 AM PST by TheEaglehasLanded
A little fact is a dangerous thing Since I'm talking on Saturday at BloggerCon about blogs and journalism, I've been thinking about what seems to me to be the central issue in this field: trust. Here is a semi-formed essay -- consider it a sort of notes-in-progress.
Three weeks ago, reading a New York Times "Political Memo" piece (9/7/03) by Adam Nagourney, my eyes scanned the following sentence: "Perpetuating a widely circulated myth, a senior adviser to a Dean rival recently sent an e-mail message saying, 'You do know that he is the Dean of Dean Witter, don't you?' He is not."
It was the "He is not" that grabbed me: Its definitive tone. Its absence of attribution (no linking to supporting evidence possible in a newspaper, of course). Its assumption that the reader would simply accept its assertion. And my own willingness as a reader to accept it.
Because I did, the first time I read the piece. I trusted it. I didn't ask, "Sez who? How do you know? Why should I trust you?" Which are the questions I would almost certainly have asked had I found such a statement on a Web page. I trusted it based on my years of experience reading the Times, on my faith in its still-formidable (Jayson Blair affair notwithstanding) editing apparatus, on my belief that the people who work at the Times are (mostly) devoted to getting the facts right.
But then I started wondering. And I got curious for myself. So I started poking around, using the same search tools available to everyone. And this is what I found.
If you search Google for "Howard Dean Witter" you will find a profusion of blogs and pages posted by people who don't like Dean saying snide things about how he's the Dean of Dean Witter. Many of them point to an August column by Jimmy Breslin which asserts that "His father was the head of Dean Witter stocks on Wall Street." Comments posted here and there by Dean supporters challenge this statement by pointing out that Dean Witter is not a firm founded by Messrs. Dean and Witter; rather, a guy named Dean (first name) Witter (last name) gave his name to the company when he founded it in 1924.
Ahh -- so Breslin got this wrong, the anti-Dean bloggers spread the bad meme, then others corrected the record, and Nagourney closed the case, right?
Not so fast. If you keep poking through the factual detritus on the Web you eventually find that Howard Brush Dean Jr., the candidate's late father (he died in 2001), was a successful stockbroker. And Time reports that the firm he worked for, and indeed was a "top executive" at, was none other than Dean Witter (known at that point in its corporate evolution as Dean Witter Reynolds).
Assuming that Time can be trusted on that, as far as I can tell, we have the following facts: *Howard Dean's Deans are not the Deans who founded Dean Witter; BUT *Howard Dean's father was a top executive at Dean Witter.
In other words, Breslin and Nagourney were both technically accurate. Breslin's statement "His father was the head of Dean Witter stocks on Wall Street" seems factually contradictory to Nagourney's flat-out dismissal of the "myth" that "he is the Dean of Dean Witter." But it is quite likely -- unless I have completely bungled this little inquiry -- that both are right.
The purpose of this exercise is not to cast aspersions on Dr. Dean for his stockbrokerly upbringing. My point is that facts in political debate are always at the service of perspective. "Facts all come with points of view," as David Byrne sang 20 years ago. Facts are not the endpoint but rather the starting point for a political argument. But too often -- among bloggers like everywhere else -- we use them as a way to close off debate. "You're wrong," we say; or, worse, "you're lying."
We like to cordon off "fact" from "opinion" in our brains, but there is no bright sharp line between them. A fact can mislead depending on what other facts it is or is not juxtaposed with. (Jay Rosen has a good piece about this in relation to the hoary question of whether blogs are reporting or opinion.) Opinions need facts to give them persuasive heft, but facts need opinions to give them meaning. We all have lots of both. It's how we integrate them that counts.
One way of defining honesty is this: Honesty is the quality of accepting new facts even when they run against your opinions. And that quality is what earns trust -- whether you're a professional journalist, a blogger, or any combination thereof.
But anything that business does wrong they blame the Republicans even when they have associations with the same companies, ex Enron, Global Crossing, Loral Space. Then these companies become their political opponents for the most part
What to make of that insipid statement, I have no idea!
. . .we can only make of this, the truth of what it says.
While they thought of their 'servants' as no more than 'servants'; they virtuously determined to treat them like human beings. . .and here I thought maybe Dean did not like his Father and so became the anti-cpitalist; when his Mother reveals herself and perhaps 'Father as well'. . .to be genuinely Liberal at heart. This might have been the beginnings. . .
Reminds me of the story of the Fonda 'children' refusing to be served dinner by the. . .servants. . . .
They could not see them as just people. . .human beings, who took pride in their job; valued their work; and who were happy to be gainfully employed. They thought, that 'dignity' was theirs to bestow by seeing them first, as no more than menial 'servants'.
Libs are forever blinded by their own arrogance of their place in the order of the world.
Unfortunately, it is also the blue print liberals aspire to emulate.
I stand corrected. But it certainly reflects how many liberals feel about elective office, especially after having been re-elected by lop-sided margins several times. Not a plantation system, but clearly with many elements of a feudal system.
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It's sort of like year and years ago LBJ, his mother tagging along, was giving "the media" a tour of his Texas ranch/estate. He proudly pointed to a little shack not too far from where they stood.
"And you see that over there,boys?" he said. "That's where I was born."
His horrified mother exclaimed, "How can you say that? You know you were born in the main house!"
To which LBJ just grinned at the reports and shrugged his shoulders. LOL, which just goes to prove there really is nothing new under the sun.
Would like to enlarge upon your definition. . .IMHO, honesty comes from, I think, a quality of truthfull 'being'; without which one would not/could not appreciate or recognize the truth, no matter how it is presented.
It is a quality, which enables one to be committed to the 'truth' of all things; according to our lights, so to speak. . .
. . .and from that we see, and trust, the honest man . . .
That said, honesty and truth seem to have little, if any relevance, for those who now define the Democrat Party. And no relevance, whatsoever, to the 'Liberal Left'. . .we surely cannot be surprised that Dean is a 'truth challenged' candidate. . .
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