‘There is such a thing as truth’

An excerpt from a commencement address delivered by Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City:

We need to think hard about what it means to be “fair.”

This is especially important during an election season when we in the press are subjected to incessant partisan attack.

Yes, we must be fair to the people we cover. That means being honest, honourable and accurate in our reporting. We need to listen openly to what candidates have to say. We need to put hypotheses to the test. We should acknowledge when our premise is incorrect, or when too much remains unverified.

But when we’ve done all the research — when we’ve done our job thoroughly — we have a duty to tell people what we’ve learned. And to tell it to them forthrightly. Without masking our findings or muddling them . . .

Let’s remember that there is such a thing as truth. And we as journalists must be resolved to find it — and to tell it.

That is an urgent mission in an era when many ideologically driven media outlets publish purported facts that are, in actuality, malicious falsehoods and baseless conspiracy theories. Certain sites have propagated the notion that someone other than Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks of 9/11 — perhaps the U.S. government or Jews . . .

Some politicians cynically repeat those lies. Others, taking the cowardly path, just choose not to challenge them.

The result? People believe a lot that is plainly, demonstrably untrue. Many people. And many people, faced with conflicting information, have no idea what to believe. The easiest course, then, is to believe whatever you’d like. All of this is having a corrosive effect. How can we have a strong civil society when we can’t agree on basic facts, when people accept lies as truth?

It is why we as journalists must stay faithful to our central purpose. Someone must still tell things as they really are.