What Is Truth?

Today, we hear a lot of talk about “What is the truth?” We’re bombarded daily by “fact-finding” emissaries all over the news media outlets ranting, raving and debating over last night’s latest spin on what I like to now call “ reality” news.

The mainstream news is now akin to a reality show. We often question whether there are any real “truths” being offered.

For Christians as well as Jews and Muslims, the concept of “Truth” becomes one of absolute Truth and equates to mandates from God and his very nature as is evident within the Sacred Texts.

There are essentially 3 treatments of Truth in the Bible.

- The mandate that we must speak Truth when we speak about God. A quote from the Book of Job shows God’s dissatisfaction with Eliphaz the Temanite in Job 42:7 which reads

- - “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.

- A request for Truth from God as guidance is another frequent refrain in the Old Testament. Psalm 25:5 reads

- - Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior…

- Perhaps the most important treatment of the Truth in the Bible comes from Jesus who famously confirmed Truth as his embodiment. We can see this in the Book of John 14:6 where Jesus says

- - “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

In the Quran, the synchronicity between Allah and “Truth” is clearly stated in many instances and essentially, “Truth” is considered both an attribute of God as well as foundational to creation itself. Most importantly, it reflects and is also aligned with the Judeo-Christian paradigm that the world was created with Truth, Wisdom and thus, Purpose.

What is Truth in the City of Man?

However, we, all of us, live in the world of mankind or as St. Augustine referred to it, in the City of Man. And thus, we need to pay at least some attention to what is being represented to us as “truth” within mainstream media.

What is “Truth” in Journalism?

Ironically, when we hear people speak of “fake news”, much of the population has no idea that mainstream news media must follow their own “Bible” or code of ethics in order to maintain secular “truth” within their reporting and to meet the very definition of being viable journalists.

Per several sources including the Society of Professional Journalists, the journalistic code of ethics requires the following:

- Seek Truth and Report It – While this one is simple, what sometimes gets lost in biased news is the verification of the evidence and sources used for reporting. As we know, this verification is not always in place. The intention here is to harness an almost scientific-like, empirical method which includes proof of the content being presented.
- Minimize Harm – This relates to the requirement that journalists must treat the individuals with dignity and respect.

- Act Independently – This requires journalists to refrain from receiving gifts or bribery which may interfere with reporting the whole truth.

- Be Accountable and Transparent – This requires journalists to maintain professional integrity and to report corrections and most importantly, to always disclose information that serves the public’s best interests.

However, there are essentially two problems with the mainstream news media since they fall into one of two categories.

Unbiased News

The news media solely reports facts without offering an opinion. The big 3 major network news media falls into this category. This was the traditional framework for many decades with legendary newsmen of integrity such as Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings in residence from different networks. Today, the names are different but their utopian ethical, journalistic mindset is still the norm.

The problem with this format is that although well-intentioned, it appears to be obsolete. Although ethics in journalism are indeed critical to reporting “truth” in the events of the day, the gradual transformation of domestic and international news reporting into a polarized competition of biased news has rendered traditional news formats a journalistic “dead-zone”.

Such legacy news reporting formats need to ask themselves a question. If their objective is to report “hard news” with a clean, unbiased filter, how can they reconcile the current biased consumption of network news?

One thing glaringly missed within the code of ethics cited above is whether the news media should function solely as reporting “witness” or as a biased “tastemaker”. The problem with acting solely in a witness capacity as a network news reporter, is the risk that the consumer of such reporting will develop a bias of their own. A related assumption is that the consumer has sufficient capability to refrain from developing such a bias despite being bombarded by repetitious news stories on the same subject matter.

So is the “unbiased news” really biased by the laws of repetition?

The role of the mass media news has traditionally been to inform the public about matters related to their security and their best interests. And while, by their own ethical code not to muddy their stories by interjecting their own opinions within the coverage, the tool of repeatedly pushing audio-visual images into people’s eyes and ears can and does introduce bias and changes of opinion. Thus today’s tele-journalists become “purposeful witnesses” by design.

What Lessons Can We Learn from the Four Gospels?

Christians knowledge of Jesus and his actions mainly come from the testimony of the famous four witnesses Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John as documented within the Gospels. By most historical accounts, Jesus lived an estimated 33 earthly years prior to His crucifixion over two-thousand years ago and yet, through repetitious ministry of their documented Gospels across two-millennia, these witnesses did indeed influence and change billions of lives over that time span. No greater “purposeful witnesses” have ever existed.

Biased News

This type of news reporting format equates with an extension of a political party or feeds a polarized niche within the population. Fox News is the most noteworthy example of this in their alignment to the current administration.

Some might also argue that news outlets like MSNBC could be considered “biased news” since they don’t support the current administration.

However, the key to determining whether the news is actively biased is whether they follow or lean more towards supporting their information with independently confirmed facts or whether they fail to report or actively shift the stories towards their intended bias. The reader or viewer must make their own choice on truth or bias within the news but if we just follow the evidence, the choice will become clear.