[TRANSCRIPT]
I am thankful for freedom.
As I write these words it almost feels melodramatic. Nevertheless, being able to think for ourselves and speak for ourselves is a great gift, hallmarks of freedom. But with them comes the responsibility to sort truth from falsehood. The more lies and distortions I become aware of, the more I realize that the freedom to seek the truth is priceless. I remember the tagline for the old sci-fi series, The X-Files: the truth is out there. Indeed. And we are free to look for it.
The problem is there are so many lies and opinions that finding the truth is becoming more difficult by the day. Our greatest danger is that we will abandon the search because of the sheer magnitude of the task. We may have come to the point where we have to settle for being able to recognize the lies even when we aren’t able to discern with clarity what the truth is. Social media has done this. I feel certain that without social media it’s bewildering claims for truth, Donald Trump would not be president.
Of course, bias in journalism has always been a danger in the shifting current of events, but there was a time when the presumption of objectivity, the reporting of the facts, stood as an indictment against bias. If there was a sacred dictum in the journalistic canon, it would be the accurate reporting of all sides of an issue - objectivity. But with the advent of social media and its first amendment protections (the same protections that have made American journalism possible) objectivity has been supplanted by obfuscation. The truth is out there, but where? The mountain of competing opinions has made it nearly impossible to determine what is baby and what is bathwater; what is journalist and what is “influencer?” The Associated Press shares a level playing Field with Wooz News.
Thomas Jefferson said, “a well-informed electorate is a prerequisite for democracy.” I believe there is a corollary to Jefferson’s statement: A misinformed and confused electorate is an invitation to tyranny. What is needful in these days, is an electorate whose motto is “quid est veritas?” What is truth?
The truth is out there. It is our sacred duty as Americans to find it.
