Curriculum Vitae (January 2022) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Matter of Fact: Journalism and the Fait Accompli
Situations: Journal of the Radical Imagination, 2019
Facts are simple and facts are straight Facts are lazy and facts are late Facts all come with points of view Facts don't do what I want them to Facts just twist the truth around Facts are living turned inside out-Talking Heads "Cross-eyed and Painless" (from the album Remain in Light, 1980) I t has been said that we inhabit a "post-fact" era. Peter Pomerantsev, in his widely-circulated 2016 thinkpiece "Why We're Post-Fact," traces a curious inversion that has taken place over the last several years. Facts, once thought the guarantor of accurate and reliable knowledge, are today regarded with suspicion. Rather than pave the royal road to science, they now just seem to get in the way of what is truly essential. Earl Landgrebe's infamous Watergate gaffe somehow appears less ridiculous in retrospect: "My mind is already made up; don't confuse me with the facts." The sheer abundance of raw data is less a source of clarity than confusion. Anyone who wants to keep abreast of new developments must sift through countless figures and detailed accounts. Overwhelmed by the flow of information, fatigue begins to set in. When politicians like Trump or Putin play fast and loose with the facts, or sometimes invent them at a whim, Pomerantsev argues that they "aren't so much lying as saying the truth doesn't matter." He explains how, contrary to optimistic forecasts, digital media merely compound the problem by rendering reports immediately accessible. "Instead of ushering a new era of truth-telling," Pomerantsev observes, "the information age allows lies to spread in what techies call 'digital wildfires.' By the time factcheckers catch a lie, thousands more have been created. Unreality becomes unstoppable." 1
The Enduring Problem of Journalism: Telling the Truth
Journal of Magazine & New Media Research
This essay explores the truth-telling issues and problems in the 1961 Freedom Rides news coverage–and highlights just how complicated journalistic truth-telling can be. Even something as seemingly simple as verifying facts can occasionally trip up the most careful among us. The best journalists acknowledge that truth-telling is fraught with pitfalls and bewildering choices, yet they continue to aspire to tell the truth. They do so knowing that knowledge is contingent, that facts are not always durable, that truth is often perspectival. What we need in our public life—both journalists and citizens—is a more sophisticated understanding of and vocabulary for what truth-telling means in journalism and a more humble attitude toward the truth-claims we must inevitably make and assess. I have said elsewhere that “the ultimate arbiter of truth is not the press but rather the public in its vital work in America’s democratic experiment.” I still believe that. It seems important occasionally to remind ourselves, as Kovach and Rosenstiel suggest, that journalistic truth is “a process over time . . . [in which] the search for truth becomes a conversation.”Journalists and citizens must engage in this search and conversation together.
Canadian Journal of Communication, 2019
This book is a collection of 11 or, if you count the Introduction (and there is good reason to do so), 12 essays. In terms of text (i.e., exclusive of notes and references), the essays range from eight to 21 pages; that is, even the longest of these is not very long, though the shortest one is rather abridged. Each one has a substantial and helpful list of references, and is no less illuminating, and helpful notes. The contributors range from graduate students to at least one distinguished professor and include a scholar-activist. The editor is a member of a Department of Rhetoric, Writing, and Communication, and the contributors come from a variety of fields in addition to Communication (e.g., education, history, advertising and public relations, art history, and education leadership). All of these essays, however, clearly bear upon one or another aspect of communication. Their quality is somewhat uneven, but not too much so. The very best pieces in this volume are of the highest quality, while none is worthy of harsh or dismissive criticism (though several-e.g., Charles Bingham's "Jacques Rancière, Mass Education, and the Linguistic Adventure around Truth" and possibly David I. Backer's "Toward an Activist Theory of Language"-do not obviously fit the agenda of reclaiming ideals of truth and objectivity). Some of these essays (e.g., Paul R.D. Lawrie's "Tragic Action and Revolutionary Intent of Black Lives" and especially Chris Balaschak's "No Doubt: The Politics of Photography in Antonioni's Blow-Up") are slight only in the sense that they treat a large topic in too limited space, but even these (especially Lawrie's essay, on Cornel West's "prophetic pragmatism") are evocative and insightful. This might be said of the volume as a whole, but this point should not be pressed too hard. For, in doing so, an appreciation of the value of having such a volume available at this time would almost certainly be undermined. This collection of essays is, indeed, a timely, engaging, and important book, even if it is a somewhat perplexing and even frustrating one. The collection is important in diverse ways, since the spectrum of perspectives represented ranges from the philosophy of language (Chapters 1 and 2) to a historical portrait of an exemplary figure in the contemporary struggle to bear effective witness to unwelcomed truths (Chapter 4); from a critical treatment of the most pressing obstacles confronting journalists today (Chapters 6, 7, and 8) to explorations of how such arts as photography, film, and painting bear upon thorny questions of public truth (Chapters 9, 10, and 11); and from mass education (Chapter 5) to historical markers (Chapter 3). The topic signalled by the book's title is, however, so pressing and multifaceted as to be impossible to address adequately in only 11 or 12 essays, especially when attention is given to such a range of viewpoints and concerns. It might even be difficult for some readers to refrain from judging that depth had been sacrificed for breadth, that a more restricted focus would have yielded a more valuable book. But those with broad interests in human communication are likely to welcome a volume that makes available such an array of perspectives and concerns.
Truth and politics in the age of digital media
Synthesis Philosophica, 2018
With the widespread omnipresence of digital social media, the truth has lost some of its reliability and objectivity, several authors warn nowadays. In fact, when an age brings to the foreground the tensions of truthfulness and falsehood, correct information and fake news, reality and fiction, genuineness and delusion, this testifies to the unpredictability and inscrutable nature of the confusion into which public communication has been entrained. The rapid development of new media and digital technologies is causing a far-reaching process of change, especially in the field of politics. In his book on "the post-truth era", Ralph J. Keyes announced the advent of a "fib-friendly times", in which "more lies than ever are being told" (Keyes 2004, 4). However, the considerations in this paper rest on a more cautious and critical approach. They support a viewpoint of pluriperspectivism. The new media have surely raised a challenge to contemporary communications. Political affairs are always about certain perspectives and contributions in the constant agon or contest of truth. There is no completely neutral and non-partisan claim to truth, as some philosophers and scientists aspired to represent. Because of its particular nature, the truth can be revealed only with controversy and effort, never without participation and beyond any perspectives. Nevertheless, neither does the truth decline nor do we enter an age of post-truth. Moreover, we can argue about the question which age tends more towards the lie and fake news. Politics is not in a more difficult state today than it has ever been, nor is it in a much simpler position in terms of truth. The truth remains for politics a supporting ground and a permanent benchmark for assessment. It can be discovered only in its pluri-perspective appearance.
Truth in the Public Sphere (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016)
Has truth become a casualty of America’s increasingly caustic and volatile political culture? Truth in the Public Sphere seeks to understand the significance of truth for the everyday world of human communication. To this end, this book explores the place of truth in several facets of the public sphere: language, ethics, journalism, politics, media, and art. Featuring an international group of contributors from across the humanities and social sciences, this collection is a definitive supplement to theoretical debates about the meaning and status of truth.
The Politics of (Post) Truth - Journalism Resources
The Politics of (Post) Truth conference brings together academics, politicians, media practitioners, and members of the public in two days of collaborative exchange. It aims to revisit the prevailing understanding of what has popularly been labelled ‘post-truth’ politics. The conference brings together three, closely linked, disciplines – politics, philosophy and journalism – to explore new and shifting perspectives on this topic and establish an interdisciplinary understanding of ‘post-truth’. The post-truth phenomenon raises difficult questions for politicians, philosophers and the public alike: have we lost trust in the media and other key institutions of the state? How might we rebuild it? Can we reassert the role of academic knowledge in contemporary political debate? How might politicians construct healthier political debate in the face of the corrosion of the ‘truthfulness’ of political, academic and journalistic discourse? Responding to these questions, and in the shadow of the 2016 Brexit Referendum and Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, the conference explores the following key questions: How can we better understand ‘post-truth’? Does ‘post-truth’ represent a genuinely new form of politics? And if so, was there ever a ‘truth’ politics and what led to its collapse? What does the future hold for post-truth politics? What role, if any, do politicians, academics and the media have to play in ‘armouring’ politics against the perceived threat of post-truth discourse? Are we in danger of reifying a phenomenon that may not really exist? In exploring these core questions, The Politics of (Post) Truth conference responds to the fact that this phenomenon has attracted significant popular commentary, but little in-depth analysis. The Politics of (Post) Truth challenges existing assumptions and examines shifting notions of truth in an age of increasing political volatility. The conference will be of interest to students, academics and media practitioners, and to anyone concerned by the direction of contemporary politics, journalism and philosophy. The Politics of (Post) Truth draws together different sectors of society and offers a unique opportunity to examine key socio-political questions and interrogate the emergence of the post-truth world.
" The True " is a central norm of journalism that cannot be reduced away to something else: opinion, consensus, social force, power, or demographic identity. There are no " alternative " facts, though there are of course alternative interpretations of facts. The evolution of social media platforms have made collective pursuit of the ideal of " the True " more difficult and complex in our time. Just as in the 15 th century the printing press led to the dissemination of forms of scepticism, so today, as the manufacture of doubt is disseminated by algorithms, distrust of journalists is widespread and increasing. Following Frege, we argue that journalists should nevertheless pursue the norm of " the True " as a central, irreducible and irreplaceable norm. We survey debates over " the True " from Frege through the pragmatists, social constructivists, deconstructionists, deflationists. In the end, we side with those who refuse to eliminate " the True " : Frege, Wittgenstein, Quine, Putnam and Diamond. " The True " should not be reduced to something it is not. Nevertheless we should be realistic about the struggle involved in unfolding and revealing it. The struggle for appropriate representation, acknowledgement of " the True " , is a central target of journalism, as it is also in everyday life.