Kireem Nam

Admit it. We’ve all done it, maybe to our parents or even our friends – and no, it’s not ignoring a text message (because we all know we’ve done that, too).We’ve all stretched the truth a bit. It’s like telling your parents you’re going to hang out with a few friends…but forgetting to mention that it might be a bit more than just “a few”. Or bragging to your friends about that amazing concert you saw last weekend, and leaving out the part that you really only saw it on YouTube…

It’s called walking the line between artfulness and dishonesty. For us students, it doesn’t seem like too big of a deal – but what about those for whom it actually matters? The primary job of journalists is to present information to society – namely, us. How would you feel if you discovered that what you read in the newspaper was actually fabricated, and that facts were twisted just to make the words sound a little more classily written, or to make the situation sound better than it actually was?

Needless to say, you’d probably be upset.

Still, these things happen. Take the essayist John D’Agata, for example. Among many writers, D’Agata is known for his frequent spats with his fact-checker, Jim Fingal, over the fine line between fact and false. D’Agata writes, “If a mirror were a sufficient means of handling human experience, I doubt that our species would have invented literature.” Whether his opinion is reasonable or not, perhaps it would be wise for journalists to draw that line a little more clearly to avoid the falsehoods that can be found in various newspapers and journals from time to time.

So, why don’t we take a lesson from this? Next time, try not to lie about actually seeing that concert. You know that it won’t end up pretty for anyone.

What, you really haven’t done that before?

Oh, please.