Verify! Verify! Verify!

Have you ever had someone tell you something that you thought wasn't true? Have you ever had someone tell you something that you know isn't true? When someone tells me something I know isn't right I get this prickling feeling on the back of my neck and my face gets hot. In other words, I get on fire for verification.

The other day, some classmates and I took a trip to a company that works for social justices issues. The founder of this company talked to us about his projects and missions and was even kind enough to print us out some graphs and charts demonstrating his points. Unfortunately, as he started throwing statistics our way, I started to wonder where these "facts" came from. Finally, I could stand it no longer and I raised my hand. Asking this man where his information came from, his response was, "basically, I'm from the hood," meaning that the figures were his estimates that he compiled from living in an urban environment for many, many years. Of course you can guess what happened next . . . those journalistic, truth-seeking bells started going off in my head.

Don't get me wrong-- this man is doing great things for people in need. The problem here is that he could be doing even greater things by passing on knowledge to others that is factually based . In other words, verified information.Think about this opportunity-- a group of fifteen college juniors and seniors getting ready to go out into the world and wanting to make a difference. This information could really kick-start someones social justice engine. They could pass the statistics on to others who could pass it on to others and so on and so forth. Knowledge is power. The possibilities are endless, but without truth as a foundational element, no causes can get far.

This concept of verification gets driven home in light of The Atlantic’s recent article “The Story Behind the Story,” which demonstrates the distinction between being a journalist and being a citizen, in this case a blogger, with an agenda. This article is basically about an active, right-wing political blogger, Morgen Richmond, who spent his time “cruising the Internet looking for ideas and information for his blogging.” Richmond found dirt on the then-nominated U.S. Circuit Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, which he posted on his blog and on YouTube and was then quickly picked up again and again by many different news stations and media outlets. Richmond was a blogger with a political agenda, not a journalist with “an allegiance to facts and truthful conclusions that worked for his readers” (Elements of Journalism 116). In a matter of hours, information was broadcast across the Internet, television and radio about a political candidate that was information not researched as truth that a citizen needs to make their own decisions about a candidate, but research done for the sake of finding dirt so an ‘opponent’ can look bad. That is not journalism.

According to Mark Bowden, author of article, “Work formerly done by reporters and producers is now routinely performed by political operatives and amateur ideologies of one stripe or another, whose goal is not to educate the public but to win… Americans increasingly choose to listen only to their own side of the argument, to bloggers and commentators who reinforce their convictions and paint the world only in acceptable, comfortable colors.” Journalism needs to be a public forum, independent from faction. The news must be built on foundational elements of truth so that the truth can set citizens free from stereotypes and bias and allow them to make their own educated, factually based decisions. Knowledge gives us that power.


What do you think?