Michiko on Blogs

The New York Times' book editor, Michiko Kakutani, weighs in today on truth, reality and blogs in the wake of the James Frey fictitious memoir scandal: "Cable news is now peopled with commentators who serve up opinion and interpretation instead of news, just as the Internet is awash in bloggers who trade in gossip and speculation instead of fact. For many of these people, it's not about being accurate or fair. It's about being entertaining, snarky or provocative -- something that's decidedly easier and less time-consuming to do than old fashioned investigative reporting or hard-nosed research."

She takes all this media hand-wringing about truth in a new direction, one that's right on target for our troubled, propaganda-propelled times. "By focusing on the 'indeterminacy' of texts and the crucial role of the critic in imputing meaning, deconstructionists were purveying a fashionably nihilistic view of the world, suggesting that all meaning is relative, all truth elusive."

As a child of such thought, I recognize the danger inherent in interpretations of history as identity politics, be they radically left- or right-wing: "...when people assert that there is no ultimate historical reality, an environment is created in which the testimony of a witness to the Holocaust, like [Elie] Wiesel, can actually be questioned."