Honesty vs truth

The question for my final exam in advanced journalism had to do with the idea of truth in journalism. This is a tricky question, because what is truth is a tricky question. I eventually decided to write my essay on honest, and take truth right out of the equation.


How important is truth in journalistic writing is an evil question. Of course truth is important. Journalism is the business of telling the news. If news doesn’t tell people what’s going on then it loses its only purpose (I’ll let you judge if it has lost purpose). The only way to tell people what is going on is to tell the truth. Truth is the root of journalist ethics. Still, I don’t like the word. Truth weighs too much. Truth makes writers feel that they should be giving people something golden, shiny, and permanent. To quote an overly quoted Robert Frost poem, “Nothing gold can stay.” That’s true, and truth works the same way. What is true one day may not be true the next. It is an evolving creature, which adapts in ways that people cannot foresee. That is why truth makes people nervous. That is why people who attempt to be truthful are often labeled as untruthful. That is why people think there is no truth in journalism. So, in my writing on journalistic ethics I am omitting the word truth. I have decided to change my vernacular to honesty.
Truth is the actual state of things. In this postmodern world, who is to say what the state of things really is. Everything is constantly up for debate. There is no actual state of things anymore. This makes things hard for journalists, because they can write up everything they see, hear and smell; but someone can always disagree with them. Honesty is more forgiving to a writer. Honesty is sincere. Honesty is upright and fair. And I think this is more important to journalism than truth. Honesty is exactly what writers such as Murray are talking about when they talk about getting away from the situation and just reporting the facts, and not attempting great writing. That is what honesty is about. Truth is getting everything down, and making sure it’s correct beyond the shadow of a doubt. Honesty is about getting all that you can, and knowing that the information you have is the best obtainable at the time. This might seem like a very miniscule detail, but it speaks volumes. Honesty is just more real. It gives readers more credit to know what facts are fluid. It is good journalism without the piety.
Last Friday someone hijacked Hillary Clinton’s campaign office in Rochester, New Hampshire. While the situation was unfolding the television news networks were there. Fox News was the first to release a name. They confidently released the name Troy Stanley. CNN was the second to release a name. CNN hesitantly released the name Leeland Eisenberg; making sure the entire time that there audience was aware it was a tentative name and revealing where they got their sources. In the end CNN had the right name and Fox was wrong, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is not the CNN had the truth. What matters is that CNN was being honest. They did not try to report the situation like they knew everything. They let their audience know that they were just going with the best information they had, and told them where that information came from. It’s that honesty that matters in this situation, journalists can be wrong as long as they let their audience know, that they are not sure. Granted, journalism should have fact checked enough that they know they are right, but in “breaking news” situations, I guess things are a little different.
Still, even when a journalist has all of his facts, he should report honestly. By reporting honestly I am echoing a phrase by Carl Bernstein. Bernstein says that journalism is, “the best obtainable version of the truth.” And that takes honesty. That is why journalists always have to quote their sources, or even put themselves into a story so that a reader knows how the information was discovered. It is the honesty that really matters. Even if what was accepted as truth changes, an audience knows that a reporter did the best to discover what the actual truth was because the reporter was honest.
Donald Murray says that he finds using the first person narrative alright in some situations. Murray says that using the “I” is alright when the writer has, “special authority, experience, or reaction.” I disagree; I think that floating in and out of a first person narrative can be a great thing in cold news and even most hot news stories. “I” lets a reader know how things where discovered, how various people responded to being interviewed, and just how things were taken care of. Sure it’s not a practice that should always be used; but if you need to be in a story for things to be clear, than put yourself in the story. It’s the honest thing to do.