Lies

By Gordon Hopkins Sorry, this won’t be a funny cat column.Most of the time I enjoy my role as reporter. Sometime I even relish it. Today is not one of those days.I don’t intend to get into the details of the stories. Those belong on the news pages. I’m just going to point out that while I am covering a very unhappy local story, I am also following along with a very unhappy, ugly national story. As usual, while trying to keep the facts straight, I also have to contend with social media.It is very important to understand that most of what people call “unsubstantiated rumors” are, in fact, bald-face lies. Sure, occasionally rumors spread from genuine confusion and innocent misunderstanding. There is also a lot of reading between the lines. Yes, when someone, like the government, doesn’t want to give out every piece of information, when they are clearly holding something back, even for totally legitimate reasons, people can’t help but try and read between the lines. Reading between the lines is a bit like writing or acting or driving a car. Most people think they are very good at it. Very few really are.In most cases, what we call rumors are nothing more than lies, repeated over and over. I’ve already spotted blatant lies on Facebook about both the local and national story. And that’s just on one of the I don’t know how many social media platforms there are.The late comedian George Carlin used to do this bit about how Americans like to use what he called “soft language” to blunt hard, uncomfortable truths. For example, the brutal impact of combat in the human psyche, what once was called “shell shock,” eventually evolved into the much more palatable and less brutal-sounding “post-traumatic stress disorder.” While doing the bit at a show in 1990, Carlin said, “I'll bet you if we'd have still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time.”Perhaps that is the problem with the news media these days. Maybe we should stop using “soft language” like “misinformation” and start calling them out for what they are: lies.Even as I write these words, I realize I’ve heard this before. This is not a new observation. The problem with news outlets is they have to be especially careful about giving ammunition to those who don’t like real news and want to find ways to shut them up. Accusations can be turned around very easily. This is why every crime story has the word, “allegedly,” pop up a dozen times or more. Of course, the real solution is for people to stop believing every wild claim in the internet and get their news from a reliable source, like a newspaper.Sounds a bit self-serving coming from a newspaper man? Absolutely, but you can’t say I’m wrong.

ReNee Lynn (Dux) Henry

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