Foreword to 1984 and "Spin"

[jolly]

"Our nominally free news media are required to present "balanced" 
coverage, in which every "truth" is immediately neutered by an equal and opposite 
one. Every day public opinion is the target or rewritten history, official
amnesia and outright lying, all of which is benevolently termed "spin," 
as if it were no more harmful than a ride on a merry-go-round. We know 
better than what they tell us, yet hope otherwise. We believe and doubt at the 
same time--it seems a condition of political thought in a modern superstate 
to be permanently of at least two minds on most issues. Needless to say, this 
is of inestimable use to those in power who wish to remain there, 
preferably  forever." ("Foreword" to "1984," p. xiii).
 
I agree essentially with Master Pynchon here; yet this indicates the need for more facts, for more objectivity (and less speculation and aesthetics), and for the de-corporatizing of news media. A public journalism is required, one that  proceeds with the most effective empirical methods available, and any military actions  taken by any world government should be filmed, broadcast, and put in the public realm (how many walmartians have seen footage of iraqi civilians killed and  mangled by US bombing raids) .   Though we may not approve of everything a Michael Moore does (or how 60 Minutes operates), a documentarian approach to political reality, however inelegant and unpoetic,  is not such a bad strategy really, and an effective antidote to hollywood spectacles or fictional excesses...... 

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