Tuesday, April 11, 2006

What's True for You...

One of my favorite quotes from L. Ron Hubbard is this one: "What is true for you is what you have observed yourself. And when you lose that you have lost everything." (I'm quoting from a book called "Understanding, The Universal Solvent", and the quote originally came from an article about personal integrity.)

I read many philosophers in college, and none of them put it that well, or gave you any tools to dig yourself out after having lost your own viewpoint, as Hubbard does.

That quote explains the problem reporters have to contend with when writing a story about, say, Tom Cruise. What they SEE is a very enthusiastic movie star. But they have a hard time reconciling what they SEE with what their editors tell them. Rather than stick with the truth (what they SEE), they embellish facts, dig up rumor and innuendo, and get comments from the envious. What a scam such journalism is.

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