Hindsight on Truth - One Journalist's story

John Rember provides insight into a journalist's challenges in reporting the truth in his article, The Truth and Other Howlers. In it, he reviews a reporting assignment he had in 1990 over the controversial issue of reintroducing wolves into the wild.

In 1990, Rember worked for the Wildlife Conservation Magazine. His editor had asked for a balanced view of the huge battle that took place between Montana ranchers, environmentalists, law makers and lawyers in a public law conference.

This new article provides hindsight into Rember's pursuit of truth and insight to all of us on the challenges of independence from faction. Rember reveals that he knew the readers of Wildlife Conservation Magazine had stong ideas about wildlife. Looking back he's admits that understanding those ideas, stopped him from reporting the entire truth.

The article also shares with us the challenges of accuracy and bias. "190 separate truths" was written on Rembers notepad he used during the law conference, representing the 190 different entities represented. He goes on to say that many people were willing to lie to further their interests.

Rember's advice today is, "The people you're interviewing are never your friends, and to the extent you doubt that, you risk your adherence to the unbiased truth. And if you risk your adherence to unbiased truth, turn in your reporter's notebook. You can make more money as a lawyer."