I'm not sure I think the mainstream media are singling out our music as a subject that doesn't require accuracy. They treat every subject (and reader) with the same disdain. I suspect publishers and editors have realized that very few consumers care about facts, they really care about conversation and images. Take a look at Mudcat threads; a small number are factual discussions of interest to folk musicians, the majority are just a framework for conversation. I don't mean to say that's necessarily bad, it's just human nature.Everyone is a performer today. News programs turn more and more to entertainment and staging footage that might be too expensive to capture as it happens. Political commentators give us so much fecal material it's almost impossible to learn anything factual about the process. Churches are full of preachers who seem to lack even a rudimentary understanding of theology. Even prestigious scientific journals have fallen victim to manipulations of fact by the companies that sponsor research.
If we happen to have special knowledge in an area being discussed, we catch the fabrications. Most of the time though we just listen to or read the prattle that's placed before us with no convenient way to examine its veracity. Most of us assign value to input that reinforces our beliefs and reject input that challenges them. Why else would the “science channel” run programs on UFOs and “unexplained phenomena?”
If you know of any media source that is scrupulous about presenting verified facts in a balanced format with intellectual integrity, please let me know about it. I'd like to see this for myself.
- Mark