There's truth, and then there's might-be truth

Once upon a time -- really, dear readers, I mean it -- most Americans got their news from newspapers. This was before radio, TV, the Internet, Facebook and Twitter.

Those were the days when human beings were free. By that I mean human beings were not slaves to electronic devices. Their ears were unplugged. If Grandma died, sometimes these unencumbered human beings didn't find out for days. Or weeks.

Nowadays, most human beings get their first whiff of history from a battery-powered device of some sort. Sometimes these "smart" things provide accurate information. Sometimes they don't.

I don't intend to make a case for noble newspapers with pure intentions. The history of journalism is fraught with eras of really lousy behavior on the part of newspapers. From the first printing presses in America and until well into the 20th century, newspapers were partisan, slanted, biased and a lot of other not-so-good things.

At some point, particularly with competitive pressure from electronic media, most newspapers found a valuable niche as purveyors of accurate and balanced news -- or as accurate and balanced as news can be when compiled by human beings who are never perfect, no matter how hard they try.

To me, the heyday of print journalism budded at the outset of World War II and blossomed in the Cold War and the civil rights movement and lasted until Donald J. Trump opened his Twitter account.

I'm not blaming our president for anything. I am observing that a tweet from the White House, like it or not, has massive power, and how that force is harnessed is of utmost importance to all Americans and to all the world.

Whatever the influence, everyone from newspaper editors to late-night comedians has taken far too many liberties, in my opinion, with facts, accuracy and the truth.

Here are two examples:

The first story has what appears to have a solid veneer. It's a love story that is turned into a minor media event. Start with a couple of lovebirds in Kansas City, Missouri. A man buys a diamond ring. He intends to propose to his girlfriend on an arched bridge in Loose Park, the same park whose sidewalks were covered with orange fabric by the artist Christo quite a few years ago. As the man, down on one knee, is ready to pop the question, he drops the ring and it falls into the creek under the bridge.

Alas. This is a fairly good story so far, right?

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's producers find out about the lost ring. So they build a stage set to look like the bridge at Loose Park. They invite the couple to fly to Los Angeles under the pretense of being interviewed for another program. The lovebirds are surprised when the Kimmel folks provide another diamond ring, and the fella gets his gal. All's well that ends well.

Maybe.

While the hearts of Americans were melting over this story, replayed thousands of times on YouTube, the newly engaged couple was living with the truth. The ring the man dropped on the bridge in Loose Park was found a short while later. Kimmel's producers knew that, but they presented, to a nationwide audience, a fake proposal with a new ring.

Here's the thing that bothers me: No one seems to be the least bit upset by the twisting of facts in this story. No one. Except me, of course.

Now take the case of the 12-year-old student trapped in earthquake rubble in Mexico. Official sources, including Mexico's navy, told news outlets such as the Associated Press that the student was alive somewhere in the mountain of crumbled concrete, steel and glass -- all that was left of her school.

Look at the tragedies -- hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, wildfires, floods, famine, civil war, threats of nuclear attacks -- around the world, and it's easy to see why so much attention was focused on the efforts to save this girl. She represented all the victims of tragedy, and she represented the good news that some victims' lives can be spared in spite of overwhelming odds to the contrary.

So for several news cycles, the search for this girl was front and center.

Unfortunately, it turns out, there was no girl. Not at that school. Not anywhere.

How so many signals got crossed in this instance is difficult to sort out. Let's just say that, in the pursuit of a good story, facts and fact checking were trampled.

There was a time, not more than 50 or 60 years ago, when fact checking was the spine of newspaper reporting. There was no Internet for quick forays into spelling verification, address checks or corroboration of one person's side of a story. Reporters and editors used reference books, phone books, city directories, dictionaries and many other sources to confirm the information being printed in newspapers.

Here's an example: At the Kansas City Star, obituary information was dictated by a funeral home to a reporter. The reporter was given the name of a family member. Before the obit was published, that family member had to be called and all the facts and list of survivors had to be confirmed.

So, lost engagement rings and missing nonexistent schoolgirls take on the trappings of truth, only to be exposed as fabrications, and no one seems to care. Except me, of course.

But what do I know? I guess those hundreds of telephone calls I made to sobbing survivors just so accurate obit information could be published weren't so vital after all.

Or were they?

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.