Can you handle the truth?

I can't help it. Every time I hear a line similar, actually, that's a lie in itself, every time I hear the word truth it immediately takes me to this scene of this movie. I suppose this is helped by the fact I have watched A Few Good Men a few times, actually that is a lie to, every time it is on the television I feel compelled to watch it. I just can't take my eyes off it. The plot thickens, I pretend to be surprised but I'm always genuinely excited. Then it comes, after all the tension and the build up - the infamous scene, an explosion of passion and those magical movie lines. "I want the truth," a fresh faced Tom Cruise demands, "You can't handle the truth!" replies the man himself, Jack Nicholson.

I may have digressed slightly, but not completely from this weeks chapters by Sharon Tickle (Chapter 6 - The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but...) and the combined efforts of Leo Bowman and former Newcastle University journalism teacher Steve Mcilwaine (Chapter 7 - The importance of enquiry).

Firstly, to Tickle and a few points that I found interesting:

• The public perception of journalism, "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story," against the MEAA Code of Ethics, "Respect for truth and the public's right to information are fundamental principles of journalism". Tickle concludes, "Between these two extremes lies the everyday reality of the working journalist," and she names issues such as time pressures, market forces, law, work culture, human frailty and experience, as issues that shape this reality.
• An historical overview of truth in society from Plato to Foucault and from Aristotle to Friedrich Nietzsche.
  
• Reasoning and judgment, more specifically, deductive reasoning (general principles related to specific fates) and inductive reasoning (specific facts related to general principles).
• Case studies such as: Stephen Glass (New Republic), Jonathon Broder (Chicago Tribune), and Matt Drudge (Drudge Report), which highlight how journalists have manipulated the truth by either plagiarism or making up stories, quotes and sources.
• "Journalists are doing more with less".
• "The day has already arrived when an individual can be handed a backpack and told to 'go get the story' anywhere in the world or in near space. The backpack would contain a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a hand-helddigi-cam, a passport, and a credit card. The new breed of all-in-one digital journalist will cover breaking news stories, acting as a journalist-editor-camera-operator-sound recorder-video-editor-presenter. Whether the beat is Kabul or Canberra, the cyber journalist will be a one-person shoot-show-and-tell."
• The statement, "...print will never die".
• And three things journalists will ignore at their "peril":
• "Don't believe anything you hear or read until it has been independently verified by the most authoritative sources possible."
• "There are many sides to a story as there are people who want to tell it."
• "There will always be someone who knows more about a subject than you do.

Secondly, to Bowman and McIlwaine, and the three stages of reporting:

• "To meet audience needs, the news-gathering process should always seek to encompass three levels of reporting, not one or two, as is conventionally accepted.
• Level 1: Reactive (immediate, sources)
  
• Level 2: Analytic (how and why)
  
• Level 3: Reflective (deeper, social trends)
• Bowman and McIlwaine use the 1996 Port Arthur massacre as an example. Level 1 was a report of the event itself. Level 2 was further questions like why a former psychiatrically disturbed person could have access to a firearm. Level 3 was a review of the gun culture in Australia and finished with the federal government imposing new laws.
  
• A more recent local example would be the 2007 June long weekend storms and floods in Newcastle and the Hunter. It started as a report of the events like the shipwrecked Pasher Bulka, the worst storm to hit Newcastle in 30 years and worst floods in Maitland since 1977. Level 2 reporting looked at how and why these storms and floods occurred by talking to the ship's skipper, meteorologists about weather patterns, and investigating the levee bank gates. Level 3 looked at the storms and floods in a historical context (frequency and patterns), the way Newcastle infrastructure handled the disaster and the Hunter's flood mitigation system.
• "The three-level system of enquiry encourages journalists to seek and explore the countless stories that await telling. It is a simple, sound technique for journalists at all stages of their careers and in all kinds of news outlets."
  

Finally, to see the infamous lines from A Few Good Men visit the You Tube site via this TRUTH link.