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threeplusfireA staff reporter for The New York Times committed frequent acts of journalistic fraud while covering significant news events in recent months, an investigation by Times journalists has found. The widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper.
The article is mammoth and amazing, yet for all the detail there are pieces missing. Just what made this man go to these lengths to do what he did? Journalism is an intensive labor, but it seems as if walking this tightrope of deception would be even more difficult. What? Why? Who are you Mr. Blair and why did you do this?
The very same technology that gives us the power to spread information, to expose the truth also allows that information to be twisted and the truth concealed. I am vividly reminded of the first three issues of Transmetropolitan when Spider Jerusalem comes back down off the mountain to write again. There's a scene where he's writing and his words go live on the screens all over the city, and it's so damned eloquent and true that it stops what is happening. And even though he's beaten by the police afterwards for it, and it doesn't cause an overall change, it's something. I was standing on the LX Express, turning onto Jollyville road when I read that part, and I remember the late afternoon sun going down, the grooves of the floor, the tears sliding down my face and into the collar of my shirt.
If there was ever something I wanted to believe in more than myself, it would be the idea that truth can change the world and that people can choose to be better than they are.
The article is mammoth and amazing, yet for all the detail there are pieces missing. Just what made this man go to these lengths to do what he did? Journalism is an intensive labor, but it seems as if walking this tightrope of deception would be even more difficult. What? Why? Who are you Mr. Blair and why did you do this?
The very same technology that gives us the power to spread information, to expose the truth also allows that information to be twisted and the truth concealed. I am vividly reminded of the first three issues of Transmetropolitan when Spider Jerusalem comes back down off the mountain to write again. There's a scene where he's writing and his words go live on the screens all over the city, and it's so damned eloquent and true that it stops what is happening. And even though he's beaten by the police afterwards for it, and it doesn't cause an overall change, it's something. I was standing on the LX Express, turning onto Jollyville road when I read that part, and I remember the late afternoon sun going down, the grooves of the floor, the tears sliding down my face and into the collar of my shirt.
If there was ever something I wanted to believe in more than myself, it would be the idea that truth can change the world and that people can choose to be better than they are.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-10 03:10 pm (UTC)It seems just so weird and sad to me.