The Town Crier

"If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly."

Thomas Sowell

In the middle of the day, a man with a bell would step into the middle of the town square, ring his bell, and say in a loud and clear voice, "Oyez, Oyez, Oyez" (Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye). It was the sound people would hear before the Town Crier would make his daily proclamations. The position of Town Crier, which has been around for centuries, goes back to Medieval England. He was an officer of the court who would make public pronouncements which the court required. Everything he said was exact as it was not his words, but rather the words of the court in which he was entrusted to pass on to the general population. The position eventually morphed into also giving some general news in addition to the court pronouncements. This was the only way people in that era could receive reliable information. This continued until around 1440 when Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press which thereby ushered in the age of print media. Over the years, as the position of Town Crier has faded into history, some jurisdictions in Europe and America have resurrected the position mostly as a novelty.

Fast forward to today. Who are the Town Criers today? Is it the print media, television, radio or the now universally accessible internet? Which if any of these can we rely on for accurate, truthful information?

Much can be said about the evolution of what is referred to today as the MSM (Main Stream Media). In the early days print media, there was clear delineation between the facts being reported and a section that contained the opinions of the editorial staff and sometimes the readers. Over the years, there has been a blurring of these two distinct sections of the media. Many who are to report the news proudly wear their biases and political leanings on their sleeves. 

If the information we receive from the media cannot be relied on as accurate and truthful, where do we go from here? In the George Orwell book 1984, which was published in 1949, a picture was painted of what would happen if the flow of information went from reporting the truth to the control of information.

"Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometer away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. ... It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: 

"War is PEACE. Freedom is SLAVERY. Ignorance is STRENGTH."

So who are the Town Criers of today? Not the MSM. In fact, a September, 2012 Gallup survey states the following: "Sixty percent said they had "little" or "no" trust in the media, which is the first time that stat has hit the 60-percent level." Wow! Over half the people don't trust what they see, hear or read. This is a mind numbing statistic. The result of this fact is newspapers and news magazines are losing money and some are going out of business. As fast as the tradition sources are shrinking, the non traditional ones are growing.

Today, many of us rely on the internet for the most unvarnished reporting of the facts. This is the golden age of blogs, social media, internet T.V. and so on. The people I go to for the best reporting get their facts from numerous sources. Their information is vetted and fact checked. Until proven otherwise, this non traditional fountian of information called the internet is my Town Crier - and will remain so until proven unworthy of that title.