Monthly Archives: January 2017

Tell It Like It Is

Tell it like it is!

Grammatically incorrect ‘though it may be, that sentence succinctly describes the prime duty of every responsible journalist.  Consumers of our many print and digital mainstream media (MSM) outlets have the right to expect balanced, accurate reporting from them.  How else will we citizens learn about events transpiring in the world around us?

There are currently several threats confronting trustworthy journalism, however.  The first centres on how we are to define the words responsible, balanced, and accurate.  Each of us may have our own definition, but ours might well differ from someone else’s.  Who is to say whose version is correct?  In an environment where media entities range from the far-right of the political spectrum (eg. Breitbart or Sean Hannity) to the far-left (eg. New Yorker or Slate), woe betide the consumer who does not comprehend the disparity in the balance and accuracy of their reporting.  Each of them defends their coverage of the news as responsible, balanced, and accurate, so it falls to us to ensure we are knowledgeable of their respective stances.

Almost every media outlet has its own bias; the responsible ones make their position clear to their followers, who can then interpret what they’re receiving through that filter—thus becoming informed citizens.  But those outlets that mask their editorial stances encourage a rising mistrust of all MSM among the citizenry, who, as a consequence, begin to paint every one of them with the same brush.

Both dishonest journalism and a widespread mistrust of journalism are bad for the survival of democracy.

Another threat to be taken seriously arises from the deteriorating economic conditions facing segments of the industry.  With the rise of digital platforms across the internet, and with almost-universal access available to so many people, the established print outlets are faced with declining revenues from shrinking advertising and circulation.  These losses are resulting in layoffs of journalists and closing of newspapers, with a concomitant reduction in comprehensive coverage of local issues so important to us.

It is at the local level where much of what we citizens need to know is reported.  If all media outlets were global in scope, such as those found on the internet, who would inform us of problems facing us in our own communities and neighbourhoods?  One of the most important, yet undervalued, roles of local media is investigative journalism, inquiring on our behalf into questionable practices by government and private enterprises.

Who, other than those directly affected, would have known of the tainted-water scandals in Walkerton, Ontario or Flint, Michigan, for example, if local media had not persevered in their probes?  Who would be reporting chemical spills or pipeline leaks, if not responsible journalists?  Who else can rouse governments to action around contraventions of regulatory inspections of dairy- or meat-manufacturing facilities, for instance, that result in danger to the public?  Who will rail against the delays in bringing accused felons to trial in an overcrowded, underfunded court system—delays that result in the staying of charges and release of those persons because their rights have been violated?

Concerned citizens’ groups can’t do any of these things if they are not first made aware of the issues by the journalists who find and pursue them.  If we don’t have responsible investigative journalism at the local level, who will watch the watchers on our behalf?

Toronto Telegram (front page).jpg

A third threat, perhaps the most serious, is posed by government.  The threat may arise from a well-intentioned, but misguided, attempt to bolster the media by subsidizing them through the public purse in order to maintain local coverage.

Or, more ominously, it may come from an unbridled attempt by government to discredit or even censor media outlets that don’t adhere to an ideological, doctrinal line.

The subsidizing of MSM outlets from public tax dollars, which at first blush could be seen as helpful in this era of declining revenues, is a two-edged sword.  While an infusion of revenue might well enable local media outlets to remain viable, thus allowing them to continue their reporting of the news, that support could come with strings attached.

What happens, for example, when the reporting of an issue is contrary to the government’s position on that issue?  Does the funding suddenly dry up?  Or does the coverage change?  Either option is a blow to a healthy democracy.

It’s a well-established maxim, after all, that (s)he who pays the piper calls the tune.  It would take a highly-ethical party on either side to resist the temptation to bully the other, or to refrain from caving in.

Censorship or assaults on the integrity of the media are equally evil, if not more so.  And even in prospering democracies, both can raise their ugly heads.  Just the other day, a highly-placed official in the recently-installed American government referred to the MSM as “the opposition party”, and said they should “keep its (sic) mouth shut.”  Although that official is the founder of one of those far-right news outlets (Breitbart)—which might lead one to expect such a stance—the tacit threat from one so close to the seat of power is chilling.

 

     [Photo Credit: Copyright © 2013 Universal Press Syndicate]

 

As I’ve written in previous posts, it is one of the expectations of the MSM that they must act as guardians of perhaps the most precious of all our rights, the right to free speech.  And a closely-related tenet in a democratic society is citizens’ right to a free press, unconstrained by government interference or intimidation.

When a government claims that media outlets disagreeing with the party line are dishonest, fake, and disgraceful, publishing deliberately false information, and involved in a running war with the government, there is a clear and present danger to those cherished rights.

In the face of such attacks, it is incumbent upon citizens to defend the media, lest we lose them—whether for economic reasons or other, more insidious, pretexts.  And we must defend all of them, far-right, far-left, and every outlet in between, because they all contribute to the dialogue that generates and nourishes a flourishing democracy.

Additionally, it is every citizen’s responsibility to make him- or herself aware of the widely-discrepant editorial leanings of those outlets in order to make sense of what they are reporting.  Otherwise, the media will be rendered unable to fulfil their essential mandate, which is—

Tell it like it is!

Alternative Facts? Really?

The sky is falling!  The sky is falling!

So proclaimed Chicken Little on her hysterical run about the barnyard, a story I first heard as a child.  Fortunately for us all, she was wrong, and the sky stayed where it’s supposed to be, high o’erhead.

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I remember being terrified at the time, wondering if the sky actually could fall in upon us.  Later on, I imagined that the poor hen was either lying or profoundly deluded.  Now, though, I wonder if she may have merely been asserting an ‘alternative fact’—something she truly believed despite reliable evidence to the contrary.

Another childhood tale concerned the shepherd boy who cried wolf.  Perhaps bored by his lonely work, or maybe seeking attention to satisfy a needy personality, he repeatedly roused the neighbouring villagers with his false alarms.

Wolf!  Wolf!  The wolf is attacking my sheep!

The villagers, of course, rallied to his rescue each time, only to discover they had been fooled, not just once but again and again.  Predictably, when the wolf really did attack, the boy’s alarms went unheeded by his protectors, unwilling any longer to believe what they were hearing.  And the boy lost his sheep to the ravenous wolf.

boy-who-cried-wolf

I wonder if he might have tried to explain his behaviour afterwards by claiming, despite evidence to the contrary, that he had not been lying; that, indeed, the wolf really had been lurking on each occasion—an ‘alternative fact’ not apparent to the villagers, but truly believed by the boy.

It was accepted by most people, once upon a long-ago time, that lying was just that—lying.  Untrue.  False.  Not supported by rational analysis of available evidence.  And, most importantly, wrong.

Both Chicken Little and the shepherd boy appeared not to subscribe to that tenet.  But their stories are fables, intended as moral teachings—much like the likely-apocryphal story of George Washington’s declaration after cutting down a prized cherry tree: I cannot tell a lie!  There was no actual harm done to real people by either of them.

Alas, in our world today, immersed to the point of drowning in a sea of social media and instant news, we are in danger of being sorely harmed by those who would deliberately lie to us.  Or, as they might claim, present us with ‘alternative facts’.

In 1905, in his book, The Life of Reason, George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Orwell, in his 1949 opus, 1984, presented a society that not only did not remember the past, but actively sought to eliminate it through newspeak—defined by Merriam-Webster as: a language…designed to diminish the range of thought…characterized by the elimination or alteration of certain words, the substitution of one word for another…and the creation of words for political purposes.

Ah, yes—the creation of words for political purposes, and the use of those words to craft phrases and pronouncements designed to bamboozle the common folk naïve enough to trust their leaders.  Does that sound familiar?

conway-2

It is as if a strategy from the past has resurrected itself (from a psychological profile composed by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, describing Hitler’s rules of political conduct and media coverage):

…never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame…people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one… [and] will sooner or later believe it.

And if these big lies are called ‘alternative facts’, well so much the better for the tellers of tall tales, the snake-oil salespeople of our modern era.  It is as if the wolf has returned to the shepherd boy’s flock, this time disguised in sheep’s clothing.  And who among the villagers will hear the anguished cries for help, and respond before it is too late?

Après nous, le deluge!  This phrase, attributed to Madame de Pompadour, courtesan to Louis XV of France, might be interpreted as—After us, let the flood come; we don’t care what happens when we’re gone.  No one in power today utters such thoughts so baldly, of course, but their actions speak more loudly than words ever could.

Those who are left behind will certainly care what happens, however.  But sadly, it may be much too late for them to restore what they will have lost.  How does one go about putting the sky back in the…..well, in the sky?

Beware the demagogue who claims that only (s)he knows what’s wrong, and only (s)he can fix it.  Resist the temptation to believe the easy, convenient, so-called truths (s)he presents.  And protest—long and loud and disbelievingly, with evidence to back you up—whenever those falsehoods are presented as bona fide.

Alternative facts?  Really?

Survival-Skiing

Every winter for quite a number of years, my wife and I used to head north, without the kids, for a weekend of cross-country skiing.  But as I think back now on those long-ago days, for the life of me I can’t figure out why.

In the first place, we weren’t off to a palatial, resort lodge with all its pampering amenities.  Rather, it was one of the provincial government’s natural resources centres, a rather Spartan setting in the deep woods.

ski-centre

We shared a bedroom there, in one wing of a large dormitory where thirty other couples inhabited bedrooms of their own.  Our room, approximately three metres wide, had a narrow cot mounted on each side wall.  There was room for only one person on each bed—not exactly conducive to second-honeymoon flights of fancy.

On the outside wall, there was a large, frosted window; light leeched in, but no one could see out.  At the end of each bed, near the window, a number of ill-fitting drawers were built into the wall.  There was no closet.

I had lived in student residences that were more luxurious.

One large bathroom, complete with three shower stalls, served all the men on our floor, as well as the men from upstairs.  A similar bathroom, designated for the women, was situated on the second floor.  Woe betide the morning-drowsy lodger who mixed up the two.

Consequently, unlike the apres-ski gatherings at luxurious ski-lodges, our social exchanges tended to occur early in the morning and late at night, as we passed everyone else on the way to and from the bathrooms.

Our friends used to wonder why we kept going back.  And we’d tell them it was because of the excellent skiing; however, that’s only partially true.

The skiing was very good—endless groomed trails curving through boreal forests, the sun streaming through skeletal trees, casting crooked, blue-grey shadows across the pristine snow.

winter-woods

As a skier, though, I left a little to be desired.  My problems always started in the waxing-room, where everybody gathered after breakfast to prepare their skis for that day’s snow conditions.

Each of the four or five people I’d check with would be using a different colour of wax.  So, to be on the safe side, I’d use them all, resulting in a rainbow of colours on the bottom of my skis.  Occasionally, someone would call out that we should be using klister.  Assuming that klister was a preparation for use on one’s blisters from the previous day’s outing, I always chose to ignore that advice.  I was no sissy!

While the others laboured away indoors, I would head outside and plant my feet securely into the harness on my skis.  Stamping impatiently in the cold, waiting for the others while watching my breath dissipate in frosty wisps, I’d often experiment a bit.  For example, I would try to turn around in place by lifting one ski over the other, and setting it down in the opposite direction.  The manoeuvre could then be completed by pushing the second ski back and out to one side, toe down, to bring it around in line with the first.  It looked so cool when other people did it.

Predictably, however, I usually lost myself in this complicated operation and found I was unable to move my feet because of the skis they were trapped in, one facing forward, the other backward.  Powerless to extricate myself, I’d resort to falling face-forward into the snow from a standing-still position.

Once rescued and set upright, my adventures would continue on the trails, where, thanks to the plethora of wax I had applied, I could find no purchase.  On downhill slopes, I bounced and careened, verging on the out-of-control, until a friendly sapling would reach out to embrace me, interrupting my headlong rush to oblivion.  My companions always insisted I go first on these downhills, which I interpreted as a testament to my intrepid spirit.  Those sharp turns at the bottom were brutal, though.

ski_tour_winter_hike_hike_222031

The cohort began to refer to me (flatteringly, I wanted to think) as a bushwhacker.

On uphill stretches, I would slide inexorably into the folks skiing behind me, my once-but-no-longer-friendly comrades.  When they eventually demanded I go last on the uphills, I blithely assumed they wanted me there to be of assistance to any who faltered.

My eventual return to the dormitory was always heralded by one and all as a triumph of random chance over probability.

So, as you can see, it wasn’t the austere accommodation or my skiing prowess that brought me back each year to that wilderness outpost.  I may have been inept [ed. note: was definitely inept], but I was never an ascetic masochist!

I suppose it was the other things we found there that kept us coming—things like good friends (they’re the ones who hadn’t yet skied behind me), bountiful and delicious food, and a time to be alone with one another—even if in separate beds.

I always looked forward to going on those survival-skiing trips—although I must admit I was equally glad when it came time to head home.  I sometimes wish I could still strap myself in to those fibreglass wings and fly away, happy once again to lose myself on the wintry forest trails.

Alas, I fear now that the only thing I’d lose would be my life!

Whither Humanity?

The word humanity is a noun, defined thusly:

  • a collective name for all human beings;
  • the state of being human; and
  • the quality of benevolence, kind-heartedness, or magnanimity.

The first may be illustrated by the sentence, That invention will benefit all humanity; the second by, We are united in our common humanity; and the third by, The good Samaritan showed such humanity through his actions.

In the first definition above, humanity—of which you and I as human beings are a part—had its origins in the dim recesses of time past, perhaps 200,000 years ago, when archaeological studies posit the emergence of Homo sapiens.  These studies have demonstrated that several precursors to that species existed, including Homo habilis and Homo erectus, all of which displayed characteristics quite distinct from apelike creatures.  But human beings as we know us today (referred to now as Homo sapiens sapiens) evolved distinctly and irrevocably away from our earliest ancestors, perhaps 50,000 years ago.

It has been estimated by the Population Reference Bureau that more than 108 billion such ‘people’ have lived on our planet since then.  The PRB, founded in 1929, is a non-profit organization that studies issues related to population, health, and the environment.  Its work pegs the number of people living today at something greater than seven billion, which constitutes approximately 6.5% of the total of every human who has ever lived.

Two major demarcations, among many others, distinguish us from the earlier versions of Homo species.  One is the growth of brain size, the other the shrinking of some physical attributes, including brow prominence, mid-face projection, and skeletal structure.  Both eventually enabled the acquisition and refinement of speech, and thus the possibility of sharing thoughts and feelings among each other—the earliest manifestation of humanity in its second definition.

It would be possible, I imagine, to express affinity, empathy, or insight with respect to the emotional or physical well-being of another, even if we were unable to communicate them verbally.  Possible, too, I think, to convey anger, resentment, or disappointment to someone.  Body language and non-verbal gestures could convey such messages adequately.  But it is through speech that we can most accurately articulate our feelings, be they positive or negative, without resorting to physical demonstrations.

The ability to speak depends on both physical and neural capabilities, which we, alone among animals, possess.  And language, which developed from this unique ability, is what has made possible every significant intellectual accomplishment along the path of our development as a species—including both the ability to save lives and prolong them beyond the wildest expectations of a century ago; and the ability to wage war unto death on those we fear or loathe, to the point of wiping them from the face of the earth.

So, at the dawn of another year, the two-thousand-and-seventeenth of the modern era (and maybe the fifty-two-thousand-and-seventeenth of our existence as a modern species), I ask this question:  Whither humanity?

We have a good idea whence we came, thanks to the innumerable studies of our history and development.  The state of humanity all humanity enjoys is well and truly established.  But where are we going?  And what of our inner humanity—our benevolence, kind-heartedness, magnanimity—toward our co-habitants of the planet?  Could it be that our brains are indeed dualistic—in the sense that we want to create and destroy, build up and tear down, co-exist and dominate—at one and the same time?  If so, that is an horrific equation, one that is perhaps the result of centuries of struggle to survive as a species, in order to perpetuate humanity.

But now, we live in an age where the baser half of that equation can have disastrous results, not just for those we choose to see as our enemies, but for us all.  And if we allow fear to draw us back into protective enclaves of our own kind—those who look, think, and act like us—to the exclusion of those who don’t, we risk diminishing our fundamental humanity.  At a time of great peril to our entire race, surely it is better to reach out, to join hands, than it is to lash out and smash humanity asunder.

We belong to numerous nations inhabiting this long-suffering planet, each of which harbours its own patriotic aspirations.  But every one of those nations depends upon the same planetary host, and all humanity is travelling on the same interstellar vessel.  Will we collectively steer our ship to safe harbour, or scuttle it with all hands on board?

I have long admired these words from the second inaugural address of Abraham Lincoln, which I excerpt here—

          With malice toward none, with charity for all, [let us] achieve and cherish a

just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Happy New Year—free of malice, full of charity—to all humanity!