> The truth, real truth, is EXTREMELY hard to ascertain
It’s really challenging for me to speak in a way that’s unarguable. For example, instead of saying “COVID is now…”, saying “I read an article that says COVID is now…”.
The first sentence is arguable, the second is unarguable because it’s my personal experience. How often do you read articles or reporting that state unarguable truths?
Even a slight tweak from “COVID cases are spiking…” to “The NY Department of Health released data showing an X% increase in reported COVID cases statewide” makes a lot of difference in how I perceive the potential bias or truthiness of the content I’m reading.
Strongly agree. A lot of choices are made in the use of language.
This happened a lot with the Jan 6th event. Some even proudly labeling it an insurrection when they made statements I noticed. It was like the language choice was used fearlessly.
The Covid headlines as you mention are another huge one. Ive heard surge so many times and it’s been completely remade into an indication of a massive spike no matter the real context.
Even if the cases really surging, I’ve always hated the use of words that take the ability away from the reader to tell for themselves what happened.
A similar issue is in finding raw video of events, like rittenhouse shooting. So much of the results were subjectively selected clips w the news anchors speaking over it. I don’t want to be told what happened, I want the raw facts.
It’s really challenging for me to speak in a way that’s unarguable. For example, instead of saying “COVID is now…”, saying “I read an article that says COVID is now…”.
The first sentence is arguable, the second is unarguable because it’s my personal experience. How often do you read articles or reporting that state unarguable truths?
Even a slight tweak from “COVID cases are spiking…” to “The NY Department of Health released data showing an X% increase in reported COVID cases statewide” makes a lot of difference in how I perceive the potential bias or truthiness of the content I’m reading.