Printed Lies

by Gene Shelburne

Newspaper people don’t mean to lie to us. Not often, anyway. But sometimes the most careful editors wind up reporting pure fantasy for fact because unreliable sources dupe them into accepting false data.

When a U.S. Marine jet fighter sliced a cable and sent a gondola full of Italian skiers crashing to their deaths, the Italian television and newspaper reporters unleashed their anger on the U.S. military complex in particular and upon the United States in general. Grief clouded their professional judgment. Wrath warped their reporting. And the major news services such as Associated Press and CNN fed their audiences what the Italian lynch mob reported as the truth.

Since my oldest son was at that time the senior Marine defense attorney in the JAG office in Italy, he was assigned to defend the pilot of the ill-fated plane. Long ago my wife and I learned that Jon cannot discuss ongoing legal cases, so we know better than to ask many questions. When I guessed correctly that he had inherited this sensitive case, however, he did warn me, “Don’t believe anything you read in the papers or see on TV about it.” He said that virtually everything being reported at that time about the tragic mishap was untrue.

If professional fact-gatherers like CNN reporters fail to report the truth, whom can you believe? Your buddies in the coffee shop and the fruitcakes calling talk radio get most of their stuff from the media news reports to start with, and, being one notch farther from the actual events, are even less likely to know what is really true.

Can you believe anybody then? About anything?

It’s not just misleading news stories that concern us. Dieticians and doctors every year or so seem to flip-flop the “truth” about what’s good for you and what will kill you, so most of us have quit paying much attention to them. Educators coming up with a new magic fix for our schools at least once a decade have just about used up their right to our credence.

One sad truth all of can us agree on is the fact that we live in an increasingly cynical age. We’re afraid to believe anybody. Including the preacher. Maybe we should say especially the preacher.

He proclaims Good News to our souls, and we wonder if he’s just after our shekels. He offers us a Savior, and we want to know, “What’s the catch?”