So How Do We Know What is True?

JOURNALISM: A.P. Assigns 11 “Fact-Checkers” to Palin’s Book, Only 5 To ClimateGate Emails.

Not particularly earth shattering in itself, but rather telling: When the media targets a public figure for 'debunking', how do you know that you are seeing a clear picture of her? How many 'fact checkers' do you think Obama's portentous books got? One? None?

And when a huge and incredibly complex cache of emails about the central debate of our time is leaked what happens: the NYT says: "they were stolen, we won't report on them" - they of the Pentagon Papers Pulitzers. And AP puts fewer than half the fact checkers that they assign to an unemployed politician's biography.

So the question is this: we make our evaluations of policy and politics based upon the news. But when the news is dishonest or biased or has a monomania on a single issue, how do you figure out reality?

How do you know what is true?

Tricky, very tricky.