Maybe the word lying is too strong. Lying indicates some kind of intent to deceive. Lying indicates an absence of truth. Lying is a distortion of the facts, as we know them. And, yes, we usually do know the truth when we lie, or enough of it that we should feel guilty about spinning a tale. This is what I call an absolute definition.

Now! Have you ever lied before? Of course, we all have at one time or another. When mom asked if you liked her new casserole you bite your tongue and smiled, “this is the greatest, mom!” When your kids buy you the ugliest tie on planet earth you see right through to their hearts and say, “I love the colors. You must have searched for hours to find this tie.”

I think God looks the other way on these kinds of lies. At least, I hope he does or I am in big trouble.

What I’m concerned about is lying for a cause. Perhaps I should shade that a bit and call it distortion for a cause. We take the facts, as we see them, and color or shade them to justify our side of an issue. Our brain tells us it’s no different than complimenting mom for that revolting casserole or praising your kids for the tie that looks like you used it to clean up a paint spill.

As a journalist I see this kind of shading and coloring every day from folks we interview and from stories we cover. The journalist’s job is to try and find the meeting ground between distortion and truth. You report both sides of an issue and try and place it in context that allows the viewer to make up their own mind about which view they believe is closer to the truth. It is not always easy and is subject to a lot of criticism. We jokingly say, “if both sides are mad at us we must have got it right.”

Politics seems to be a different animal these days. There is no such thing as lying; it’s just different interpretations of the facts. Extremism is the rule of the day. You call someone a whacked out liberal or a right wing conservative because it’s a lot easier than taking the time to point out the philosophical differences between those two points of view. You condemn all of the incumbent’s actions and declare all of his deeds null and void in order to draw those discontented voters to your side. In the grand scheme of things this comparison and contrast is at the center of all political contests. You need only look back at some of the great political contests through out American history, Lincoln vs. Douglas, Truman vs. Dewey, Kennedy vs. Nixon, to see these extremes used time and again.

So why is it any different today? I fear what is happening is a conscious effort to distort the truth in order to win at all costs. Political parties are trying to mobilize the electorate to get out and vote. In order to break the apathetic coma of the fat, dumb, and happy, they attempt to strike a hot button that will emotional charge a voter into action. Okay, I’ll bite my tongue for the moment and pass that of as politics as usual.

What galls me though, is that those who are seeking favorable news coverage are applying the same mentality to non-political stories. Find an emotional hot button, a “cause celeb” and distort away. The greatest good is winning and what we do to get there can be justified, especially if some ones life is at stake.

Translated: An accused killer who looks like a bum is shaved and primped in a fine suit and tie. The character flaws of a witness are exploited to the point the individuals testimony sounds like a first graders lie. Facts, which clearly point in one direction, are twisted so severally with potential what-ifs they look like an octopus. Wild scenarios are introduced in the media for the sole purpose of distracting and swaying public opinion. That’s what is going on now in the Scott Peterson case and we so woefully observed in the O.J. Simpson case. The “purest” side of me wants to call that lying, but I won’t and can’t because I am not God and don’t have access to divine, infallible knowledge.

All of this I bring up only to help explain the Terri Schiavo case from a journalist’s perspective. On October 15th a judge will allow Michael Schiavo to disconnect her feeding tube allowing her to die. The courts have ruled that Terri wants to die rather than be kept alive in a vegetative state. No, she didn’t write down her wishes in a living will. The courts have ruled that she made her wishes known verbally to her husband and several other people. Meanwhile, Terri’s parents believe she can be rehabilitated. They also believe that Michael has not done enough to care for his wife and that the state has no right to, in their words, “authorize the murder, by starvation” of Terri. There is more to the argument but that’s it in a nutshell.

Schiavo’s parents have admitted they would do anything to save their daughter. I’ve told you in past columns I might be willing to do the same. Does that ‘anything’ mean they would be willing to lie or that any of their witnesses would be willing to lie? Does that mean their attorney would be willing to take the facts as presented and twist them to make it appear that Michael may have beaten his wife into this coma, or at the very least conspired to keep her in this vegetative state?

Or, is Michael lying? Has he twisted the facts? Did he become tired of Terri’s helpless state? Did he do everything in his power to deny Terri medical treatment? Did he want to take the malpractice settlement and skip town with his girlfriend? Is Michael’s attorney representing him in order to make money from a future book deal?

Everyone one of these scenarios has been suggested by court pleadings. Those of us covering the story didn’t make them up. We report what is on the record. We try our best to get it correct. I’ve gotten some many phone calls and e-mails and threats I stopped counting. It’s odd, because all I do is read the introduction to the story and let our reporters cover the meat. Two of the “new” witnesses have called me personally begging to save Terri, admitting the larger issue of “euthanasia” is what’s at stake. The “hate mail” comes from both sides of the case so we must be getting something right. We’ve even been painted as the villains in this case involved in a general conspiracy that involves Michael, his attorney, the State Attorney’s office, and whom ever else you can toss in.

If we’ve got opinions about the story those opinions don’t make it to the airwaves. This column doesn’t appear on TV. We anguish over each and every word we choose. Is it “vegetative” or a “coma” or just “disabled.” We don’t spin or lie or distort because too much is at stake in this story. We don’t try to analyze the arguments in this case like we do with political ads where the distortions are often times obvious. And we don’t call anyone a liar or accuse anyone of lying because we just don’t know.

Glenn has the rare privilege of being able to crusade for Terri based on his own personal beliefs. Good for Glenn. But don’t make the mistake of thinking we, the media, are part of a conspiracy to deny anyone anything. When this legal mess is all over we will feel just as empty as everyone else who is forced to operate in this zone of living and dying essentially at our own hands, the law!

Truth is not easily found in the sea of distortion we are all forced to sail.

Al Ruechel, Copyright 2003, All Rights Reserved

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