Jenifer’s Journal: 57 varieties

You’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan

As of this column, guess how many I’ve written so far?  Oh, you know me too well — yes, 57.

I was going to name it “57 Veracities,” because it’s about truth, or the lack of it, or maybe the staggering surfeit of what passes for it that we are being forced to slog through daily.

Nowadays, even with “objective” truth — not the normative kind, or the subjective, or even the “complex” — merely that straightforward, just-the-facts-m’am, provable kind, there still can be at least 57 varieties.

I know, I’ve written about truth as an endangered species before, but now, with the mid-term election coming up, and issues on the ballot that will seriously impact seniors, such as inflation, prescription drug prices, COVID and healthcare costs among them, we have a vested interest in finding ways to confirm the “truths” being touted by all sides, Republican, Democratic, Independent, so that we are more able to vote with confidence in our own best interests. 

A story by Businessnsider.com in 2018 reveals the following: “Americans believe that 62% of the news they consume on TV, in newspapers, and on the radio — and 80% of the news they see on social media — is biased, according to two new surveys. Those surveyed also believe 44% of news reporting and 64% of news on social media are inaccurate.

And they’re upset about it — more than 80% said they were angered or bothered by seeing biased information and slightly more felt similarly about inaccurate information. In evaluating news outlets, poll respondents closely associated bias with inaccuracy. Outlets they feel are biased are also inaccurate, in their view, and vice versa.

But perceptions of bias and inaccuracy differed based on the respondents’ political persuasions, particularly with regard to Fox News, Breitbart News, CNN, and MSNBC.

Respondents with different political views also have different perceptions of the pervasiveness of bias in the news. For example, Democrats believe just 44% of TV, newspaper, and radio news is biased, Republicans believe 77% of it is biased. But both groups believe there is widespread bias — between 74% and 83% — in news shared on social media.

Presented with a host of major news outlets, respondents found that PBS News and the Associated Press were the least biased outlets, while Fox News and Breitbart News tied for having the most perceived bias.”

In my search to find reliable fact-checking sites on-line that could objectively confirm or deny information we’re gleaning from our favorite sources, I came across a site, tech.junkie.com,  that seemed to provide a comprehensive assessment of all the major ones, including Snopes, Politifacts, Factcheck.org, ProPublica, and Wikipedia.

The thing is, fact-checking has become an industry because lying has become an industry — an extremely profitable one. A glaring example:  A recent defamation suit revealed that the defendant, creator of the program Infowars, started pulling in $800,000 a day from his supporters when he began insisting that the 2014 murders of 20 first graders and six teachers in Sandy Hook, Conn., was a hoax.

It seems that ever since, a huge disparity in a certain crowd size was chalked up to “alternative facts,” America has had a serious truth problem. Maybe, like inequality, lying is in our nation’s DNA. That famous confessional about chopping down a cherry that has been assigned for centuries to our country’s iconic truth-teller, George Washington? 

Not true. Just an apocryphal anecdote first included in a book about Washington published in 1806 by Mason Locke Weems. Jeez.

Look, I’m old — absent-mindedly-trying-to-make-a-phone-call-on-the-TV-remote old — and, like many of us, I need access to objective facts if I’m going to make truly informed decisions this November about practical but crucial issues that may affect me for the rest of my life. 

Oh, I’m old, but I’m not dead yet, so I also care deeply about what kind of America we’ll be leaving behind for our kids and grandchildren. I don’t think it’s overstating it to say that this mid-term election will be a referendum on truth, the outcome of which will determine in great part whether or not we’re moving towards or away from democracy with free and fair elections, the peaceful transfer of power and equal citizenship for all. 

As November approaches (in three months), I’m hoping that, of the at least 57 varieties of  participation in the process available to all of us, e.g., personal research on issues, canvassing, volunteering as an election  worker, hosting informal informational meetings, checking out a wider variety of news sources, attending candidate forums, driving voters to the polls, etc., we can all avail ourselves of some of them. 

Oh, and did I mention voting? Maybe of the 57 varieties, that should be No. 1.

Just sayin’.