Day By Day

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The Narrative is All that Matters

Penelope Trunk, an accredited journalist, writing in the Huffington Post, argues for journalistic subjectivity, a major reason for the pervasive mistrust I noted in my previous post.

Her position, summarized by a commenter is:

Since all human observation is inherently subjective, journalists shouldn't even attempt any measure of objectivity whatsoever. If you think they should, then get over it.

This is the post-modern position in a nutshell. Objective truth is ultimately unattainable, so all that matters is the narrative that you find most congenial.

Trunk's blatant disregard for facts prompted the following comment:
For quite some time I’ve wondered if reporters/journalists were lazy, stupid, malevolent or some combination of all three. Now I know they’re just highly creative. This explains a lot.
Indeed it does.

Read the whole thing here. [hat tip: Instapundit].