Truth as Accuracy
“Truth” is, of course, the noun form of the adjective “true.” One meaning of “true” is “accurate.”We understand today that Social Darwinism is not a standard for successful human flourishing. Human flourishing requires competition, to be sure; but it also requires cooperation, faith, and benevolence.
Similarly, the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics are statements about reality in vast and minuscule spaces. They are not statements about human reality. The fact that speeds are relative does not mean that morality is. The fact that everything is squishy at the quantum level does not mean that everything is squishy at the human level. You can test the latter proposition yourself by running headlong into a tree.
Truth as Faithfulness
A more dynamic definition of truthfulness is to be true. This means to be faithful, trustworthy, and honest. A “true” person honors promises and is loyal to friends. Like accuracy, this form of truth is also a journalistic virtue—if the “friends” the journalist serves are readers and the public rather than the political and social elites to whom many media outlets cater.Thus, in addition to being accurate, a news medium should be true in the sense of conducting itself faithfully. I’ve noticed that the more reputable outlets in the mainstream media usually endeavor to be accurate, but they are not “true” in the latter sense. They break faith by what they choose to report and how they structure their reports.
Some readers may think that this is a modern phenomenon. But mainstream media bias goes back many years. As a teenager in the 1960s, I noticed that the NBC, ABC, and CBS news shows frequently interviewed liberal Democrat senators and very liberal Republican senators. But it was rare for them to interview a conservative senator, unless he was Barry Goldwater of Arizona—in which case the discussion was a barrage of journalistic attacks from beginning to end.
Similarly, I noticed that the mainstream media focused more on events of importance to liberals than to events of importance to conservatives. A liberal event would receive respectful coverage, but a conservative event was not considered newsworthy unless a participant said something stupid or wore a racist T-shirt. In that case, the media would run stories focusing on the stupidity or the T-shirt.
I personally witnessed this media bias as a law student, when I organized peaceful counter-protests against a communist-led seizure of a university building. The New York Times gave considerable coverage to the building take-over. But I remember the disappointment on the NY Times reporter’s face when I told him that we counter-demonstrators were not fascists—that we represented a wide range of views, from conservative to democratic socialist. Of course, we didn’t get much coverage.
So even when the mainstream media products are “true” in the sense of being technically accurate, they often are not “true” in the sense of presenting readers with a faithful representation of political views and options.
In its news coverage, The Epoch Times seeks to be “true” both in accuracy and faithfulness. Admittedly, it sometimes seems as if the paper has more coverage of issues of importance to conservatives than to liberals. However, I think there are two good reasons for that: First, as many stories report, calls to liberal sources often go unanswered by press time, in accordance with the political “wisdom” of avoiding contact with non-compliant media. Second, the mainstream media saturate us with events and viewpoints important to the left, so The Epoch Times knows we’ll hear of them even if it does not report them. But if The Epoch Times fails to report on events and viewpoints important to conservatives, we may never hear about them at all.
Tradition: The ‘Static’ Meaning
Tradition, like truth, has both a static and a dynamic definition. The static definition refers to presently existing customs and practices inherited from earlier times—the “wisdom of the ages.” A snap-shot of the English language at a given point in time exemplifies this “static” meaning. So does the fading tradition of a man tipping his hat to a woman as a gesture of respect.The Epoch Times has stated editorially that it “recognizes the wisdom and beauty in the traditions of the world’s great civilizations”—in other words, the traditions that exist today. This explains the paper’s sponsorship of the Eastern tradition of Shen Yun’s classical Chinese dance and its coverage of Western tradition, such as art and culture. Support for existing traditions is one reason (of many) for the paper’s opposition to communism: Communism is, by definition, hostile to tradition.
any lady may travel alone, from one end of the United States to the other, and be certain of the courteous and considerable treatment everywhere. ... Nor did I ever once, on any occasion, anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention.How much have we have lost with the simple tip of a hat!
The Dynamic Meaning of Tradition
An alternative meaning of “tradition” is much closer to the origins of the word. “Tradition” derives from the Latin noun traditio, a handing across or handing over. The corresponding Latin verb is tradere, to hand across. This sense of tradition is a process: It is the process by which each mature generation hands over what it has learned to those in the rising generation. It is closely akin to education.We all have a responsibility for this form of tradition. Parents, for example, are responsible for passing along knowledge to their children. Educators also have important responsibilities in this regard.
The Epoch Times provides needed assistance. The paper contains a vast amount of educational material for adults and children, and for home school parents. You can find this material in news reports, op-eds, videos, and features on history, architecture, art, and other topics—throughout the print and Internet versions of The Epoch Times.