Business

Truth: a slippery concept

from The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town “On Kean’s page there has been a long-running take-it–out-put-it-back-in […]

from The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town

“On Kean’s page there has been a long-running take-it–out-put-it-back-in duel concerning a video of the candidate shunning an antiwar activist whose son is stationed in Falluja. Menendez supporters write up the incident on Wikipedia, under the heading “Refusal to meet with military families.”Kean supporters, in response, add a few sentences about how the incident was a setup, orchestrated by the Me-nendez campaign. ”

Wikipedia, long held up as proof of what is possible if you trust the crowd now illustrates that not all topics are equally suited to the wikipedia approach: the “truth” is changing every second.

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    Lawrence Krubner

    “Wikipedia, long held up as proof of what is possible if you trust the crowd now illustrates that not all topics are equally suited to the wikipedia approach: the “truth” is changing every second.”

    This open expression of conflict is the most honest way to deal with subjects that are at the center of intense conflict. Any editor who tries to hide that conflict is lying about the subject. You won’t find Time or Newsweek or the New York Times offering a more truthful account of Kean, Menendez or the video. The reality, the truth, is conflict. An editor at a publication like Newsweek must make some decision about how much space to give to both sides of this issue, and whatever coverage is given to any side is a decision that must introduce some kind of bias. It doesn’t matter if both sides are given 50% of the words in an article, or if the the split is 60/40 or 40/60 or 80/20 – whatever the decision is, it is a decision that introduces bias into the coverage of the conflict.

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