Happy Spring

The great enemy of the truth
is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive
and unrealistic
 --John F. Kennedy

 Fly with me, float down to Peru
In llama land there's a one-man band
And he'll toot his flute for you
Fly with me, we'll take off in the blue 
--Come Fly With Me, Frank Sinatra 

Everything we hear is an opinion,
not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, 
not the truth
--Marcus Aurelius
 ________________ 

Ranger update:

Apologies for the paucity of posts. It is springtime, and we return with a whiff of fresh air.

Our current interest is the nexus of myth, media and truth (not that the first two do not possess their own truth.) We will be looking at today's events through this lens.

Why not? This decade has seen the demise of major newspapers and the extreme downsizing of the reporting staff at the remaining papers. McClatchey news service was left standing as a lone credible (=disinterested) news source, and wildcat reporters congealed around groups like Global Post.

Many are attempting to decenter such news, playing upon the Postmodernist idea that truth does not exist. Tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar has seized the moment to create his partisan-style news service First Look Media which has recruited lawyer-writer Glenn Greenwald and journo Jeremy Scahill.

The Guardian quotes Jeremy Rosen who interviewed Omidyar as saying Omidyar is seeking "the proper midpoint between voicey blogging and traditional journalism, in which the best of both are combined." His First Look Media has been called "crusading Journalism", but that is an oxymoron. Journalism is the direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation. Opinion is opinion.

Truth. Let's give it a go.