This is a variation of a column that I have been writing yearly for decades. I write to remind readers that skepticism has been a driving factor in my over 50 years in journalism, including small and large city dailies, the Associated Press, Congressional Quarterly, Energy Daily, Electricity Daily, POWER magazine, and The Quad Report.
Skepticism is often under attack, from a variety of directions. Skepticism about global warming claims, not about the phenomenon itself, is viewed as apostasy in some corners, among people I normally would expect would value it.
Believers in conspiracy theories and in the endless lies of Donald Trump view skeptics as enemies who are clearly part of the conspiracies. On his part, Trump spawns conspiracy theories with the frequency of summer squalls.
“The sad bastards who fall for conspiracy theories always see more than what’s really there.” Mick Herron
A great line about conspiracy theories comes from novelist Mick Herron in book 8 of his terrific Slough House series (now spun off for television in the hit “Slow Horses” series): “The sad bastards who fall for conspiracy theories always see more than what’s really there.”
The term “fake news” gets carelessly thrown around by anyone who dislikes journalistic work that questions their revealed truth. CUNY’s Lloyd Sealy Library has a fine essay on fake news, including a copy of a guide from the university’s graduate school of journalism, Fact Checking, Verification & Fake News.
With the rise and triumph of digital technology, dissemination of news, opinion, analysis and, unfortunately, lies, the velocity of the spread of information and disinformation has increased to light speed. Mick Herron’s Slough House opus again has a valuable observation: “Improved communications don’t just let information travel faster, they let bullshit off the leash too.”
The proliferation and speed of B.S. is a challenge for journalists, and it requires more than the conventions of attribution, such as “experts say,” or “scientists have discovered,” or similar examples of fake objectivity. As a feisty female copy editor I once worked with would have said when faced with this sort of attribution, “Who are these (bleeping) experts and what makes them (bleeping) experts?” That’s skepticism in practice.
The inspiration for this essay is a postcard I have had pinned to my overcrowded bulletin board for many years, done as a promotion for journalist Steven Brill’s late, lamented media watchdog magazine Brill’s Content.
“Skepticism is a weapon. It deflects spin, propaganda, P.R., B.S., press agents, publicity seekers, hearsay, unnamed sources, and anyone with a hidden agenda.
“Skepticism is that little voice that tells you that you’ll never be a millionaire with little or no money down.
“Skepticism is that sneaking suspicion that all aspirin are alike.
“Skepticism is a quality shared by truth seekers, freethinkers and realists.
“Skepticism demands that proof and facts be unsanitized, uncensored and unembellished.
“Skepticism makes the world accountable.
“Skepticism is a virtue.”
–Kennedy Maize