How to get the best obtainable version of the truth

Carl Bernstein says that the best the press can do is get the best obtainable version of the truth. He says that to get the actual and complex truth, "requires hard work, digging, reporting"

Wow, that is the fanciest way to say nothing that I have ever heard. Let's face it, Bernstein is a reporting legend who is now on the "rubber chicken dinner circuit" and is preaching to those who think he's great. Now, I don't want to say that his points are not valid, or that its all fark, but its a little grandiose.

In the speech that we read, Bernstein manages to say a lot of things that touch on important topics, but doesn't say a whole hell of a lot.

Still there are some great points in here. He hits it right off the bat, " Today we in journalism limit ourselves more often in finding out the truth than the government limits us, because we are not willing to do the hard work of good reporting, of searching out the truth." This gets us into the "best obtainable version of the truth". If anyone really wants the truth they have to get that first polished quote from the government and then sniff around and talk to workers, see if this is really going on. They have to look at records. They have to go in depth.

Bernstein then goes on to talk about why reporters don't go in depth. Trash sells, timeliness is better than good reporting, and people want easy truths not complex ones all fall into why journalism doesn't go in depth anymore.

I have to agree with Bernstein--Rupert Murdoch sucks.

Yet, you have to look at it in some context. Bernstein needs this lecture circuit. If he doesn't talk like the whole of American journalism is going to hell, no one wants to listen. So yes, Bernstein has a lot of good points, but it doesn't go for all of American journalism.

here is one quote I really like. It doesn't really fit in with what I am talking about, but its fantastic!

"The truth is often complex, very complex "The best obtainable version of the truth” is partly about context and this is perhaps the greatest single failing of our journalism in media today. For too much of it is utterly without context. Facts by themselves are not necessarily the truth. Thus the gossip press, the tabloids, too much of what we see on the air, even when the facts are somewhat straight, they are often a form of misinformation, because their aim is to shock, to titillate, to distort, to give grotesque emphasis."

Again, this fits for a lot of the fark you see on TV and in the isle of your local grocery store, but it is not all American journalism.

Bernstein has alot of good points in his speech. Jouranlists should fact-check, talk to multiple sources, follow all stupid lead just incase, and really get thier hands dirty. Journalists shouldn't publish anything till it is well polished and makes sense, but hey that still happens. There is still hope. Smile Bernstein--smile.