Oh, say where is the truth?

Oh, say where is the truth?

August 2, 2001

STRAIGHT TALK
By Muriel Sluyter

Greeting, Gentle Reader,

There is a saying in Holland: "De krant brengt de leugens in het land." Translation: "The newspaper brings the lies into the land."

Europeans are a cynical lot. They know their news reports are about one part information, and two parts propaganda. Are we that smart, and does it matter? In order to remain free, a citizenry is totally dependent on accurate, truthful information, Otherwise, how can they know when their freedom is threatened?

How can people know whether the various news media are lying?

Remember the pictures taken of a particular truck, to prove it would explode in an accident? The news people planted explosive charges on the sides of the truck, so it would appear the gas tanks had exploded on impact. Fortunately, they were caught and exposed; the films showed the explosion occurring a split second before the impact. If they have no integrity, con men should at least have a good sense of timing, and these didn’t.

Remember when a news show wanted to show a disgustingly contaminated stream? They couldn’t find one in the area on which they were reporting, so they took file footage on another stream and said it was the one they were showing. Fortunately, they too were caught and exposed by people who remembered the picture.

How many times have these sorts of things been done, and the perpetrators have not been caught? Too many times, for instance: The Associated Press released a story about trucks from Mexico that are supposed to be permitted to travel on our highways, because of NAFTA.

They said lawmakers are objecting to the trucks, because they tend to be less road-worthy than Canadian and U.S. trucks, and the lawmakers want to guarantee that Mexico’s trucks can pass as rigorous an inspection as other trucks. But, due to pressure from the Teamster’s Union, inspection requirements for Mexican trucks are, reportedly, considerably tougher than for Canadian and U.S. trucks.

Unfortunately, that is not how it is being reported. Mort Kondracke of Roll Call says the heightened inspection requirements for Mexico’s trucks are akin to racism. I’m not sure that’s true. I suspect it’s pure union power tactics, but since it has the appearance of racism, they are saying Mexico wants its trucks to be held to a lower standard of road worthiness. That gets the lawmakers off the hook, while giving them an appearance of both virtue and vigilance.

How can we tell if the media really are "bringing the lies into the land"? For one thing, we should increase the diversity of the sources from which we get our information. It’s great to listen to the evening news, so long as we are ready to check their stories, because too often, their reports are, also, one part truth and two parts propaganda.

How should Associated Press have handled the story? Well, a good place to start would have been to state the situation openly. The American people now think Mexico is trying to send trucks up here that cannot pass safety inspections. Lawmakers, beholden to the Unions, know their erection of a barrier to Mexico’s trucks must be surreptitious. So they simply do what they want to do and lie about it.

John Philpot Curran said: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

If Americans don’t want to break the condition upon which their freedoms lie, they will have to become eternally vigilant listeners and readers.