In the Soviet Union, there were three newpapers of importance: Izvestia (which means News), Pravda (which means Truth) and Trud (which means Work). The Russians used to joke that in News there was no truth and in Truth there was no news, but in everything, there was work.
I was reminded of this joke today when I read the comment of CBS News on the new movie Truth. It is a false history of the Dan Rather/Mary Mapes story of 2004. You may recall that in 2004, just prior to the election, 60 Minutes ran a piece created by Mapes and broadcast by Rather that said that George W Bush had been AWOL from his air national guard unit during the Vietnam War and had never actually completed his service. The problem with the report was that it was a total fraud. Mapes and Rather had relied on false documents which turned out to be forgeries. Indeed, the forgeries were so amateurish that some sites on the internet picked up the story and revealed the fraud. Mapes and Rather had not even bothered to do any fact checking because they were so glad to have a story to use against Bush. The end result was that CBS fired both of them.
In any even, CBS is now refusing to even accept ads for the new movie because it falsely tells the story in which Mapes and Rather are the victims of corporate greed in which a true story is covered up. (It is hard to imagine that anyone would make such a phony movie, but Sony did.) In any even, the CBS comment is that "It is amazing how little truth there is in Truth."
I was reminded of this joke today when I read the comment of CBS News on the new movie Truth. It is a false history of the Dan Rather/Mary Mapes story of 2004. You may recall that in 2004, just prior to the election, 60 Minutes ran a piece created by Mapes and broadcast by Rather that said that George W Bush had been AWOL from his air national guard unit during the Vietnam War and had never actually completed his service. The problem with the report was that it was a total fraud. Mapes and Rather had relied on false documents which turned out to be forgeries. Indeed, the forgeries were so amateurish that some sites on the internet picked up the story and revealed the fraud. Mapes and Rather had not even bothered to do any fact checking because they were so glad to have a story to use against Bush. The end result was that CBS fired both of them.
In any even, CBS is now refusing to even accept ads for the new movie because it falsely tells the story in which Mapes and Rather are the victims of corporate greed in which a true story is covered up. (It is hard to imagine that anyone would make such a phony movie, but Sony did.) In any even, the CBS comment is that "It is amazing how little truth there is in Truth."
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