The Word, I Think, is Veracity

The other day, I noted Bitheads eye, and thoughts, on Instaman’s foray into the mainstream media, via the Wall Street Journal. Instaman was considering the effect of blogs, on the mainstream media, and Bithead was also was considering the subject, with a nod towards recognizing that the mainstream media’s “authority” was waning, and various blogs’ authority were waxing.

In my post, I threw out for consideration, the thought that it wasn’t necessarily “authority” that blogs were gaining, but respect.  Bithead kindly dropped an expansion of his thoughts on this subject in the comments to my post, and, in a further expansion on this subject, in a post titled “Why has the press lost it’s (sic) authority?" he notes an earlier post of Billy Beck’s titled “What’s Happening To Authority," which references Gutenberg’s contribution to the issue of authority, which was an undermining of a powerful group and an uplifting of individuals.  Gutenberg’s contribution, without a doubt, did empower the individual, as do the internet, and blogs.

As I applied myself to various yard chores this morning, I considered these two gentlemen’s thoughts.  One word kept casting itself into my thoughts as they mingled among Billy’s and Bithead’s thoughts.  Veracity. As recently as this morning, Billy noted the lack of veracity in the mainstream media, and he also noted the alacrity with which the mainstream media’s product is consumed, a thought which bears heavily on this issue of whether or not the mainstream media actually does have any authority, or, is more like a group of gossipy teenage girls gathered around a locker in the hallway of a local highschool.  Or, as I mentioned in this post, simply spewers of white noise.

The subject is an interesting one, and though Bithead ends up at a somewhat different destination than Billy, as noted in his post titled "Why has the press lost it’s (sic) authority," where he posits that authority is acheived through groupings of individuals, rather than through the individual, both Billy and Bithead display more veracity, individually, than any media group currently in existence.

Posted by on 09/04 at 11:17 AM

  1. I’m not quite sure how to react to your last comment, here, for reasons which may not be apparent. I do thank you for your obvious respect… which is returned.

    However, understand me clearly please; As I explained to Billy offline the other day, I find that writing out such explorations of thought, are really an effort to clarify and solidify such thoughts as they occur.  That does not suggest that such thoughts once they get published are not still a work in progress. In fact by definition, that I’m writing it at all suggests I’m debating it with myself first, and in publishing it, opening my temporary concluions up to discussion, second.

    I guess my problem here is that my entire write up could be little more than sophistry, I don’t know. The conclusions I reached I consider plauseable, even logical, else I’d not propose them.  True.... in re-reading my writings, I can see where someone could take them as my asserting the stated conclusions as fact… and I am not doing that, really… I’m simply stating it the way I see it.

    You see, to my view, there’s a fine line here drawn in part by the idea that everyone’s reality, and therefore everyone’s opinion, is subjective. I leave open the possibility in my mind that what I see may be incorrect because of that subjectiveness inherrent in all human beings. On that basis, is ‘veracity’ the word to be used here, do you think?  I’m not sure.

    By comparison, It’s true.... the media of today for the most part makes no such distinction; leaves open no such possibility of a subjective POV. There are several news outlets which claim ‘nothing but the facts in our paper’ (Whatever) when most reading it will report the paper contains anything BUT ‘nothing but the facts’. Yet they leave no room to understand, much less acknowledge the idea that their subjectiveness exists at all, much less that it could be skewing their output. Thereby their veracity can certainly be questioned. In fact a lot of the purpose of my blog is to take up that challange… questioning the veracity of the press these days.

    On the other hand, their busienss is to present stuff as fact… and publicly questioning themselves I suppose does nothing to help the image that they’re doing their job.

    Mine, in this context, is running a blog, with the side target within this conext, of getting people to think. I guess the thresheold to veracity is set somewhat lower for myself thereby.

    Posted by Bithead  on  09/04  at  10:48 PM

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