'The truth in the news", once the slogan of the Irish Press, expressed a claim that might not always be justified, but nevertheless an ideal at the core of serious journalism. Is there an implication that the truth like precious metal is a smaller quantum extracted from the news?
Objectivity is always to be striven for, though impossible to achieve.
Kant did not dispute the existence of material reality, unlike Bishop Berkeley. He argued that the thing in itself is unknowable, and that knowledge always consists of particular perceptions or angles transmitted through a priori categories of human understanding.
Dun Scotus Eriugena, the Irish scholar who taught in the Carolingian empire, perceived justice the same way: "for here in this life shrouded in mists, there is, I believe, nothing perfect in human striving, nothing that is free from all error, in the same way as the just still living are not called just because they are just, but because they wish to be just and strive for perfect justice in the future".
Pontius Pilate is remembered for three things: his question, "What is truth?"; washing his hands in public of the blood of Christ, trying to purge his acquiescence in an injustice demanded by an organised mob; and, more honourably, sticking by the inscription on the cross, despite objections; "What I have written I have written".
The difficulty first of all of establishing the truth and then in accurately and succinctly describing it, is a challenge in all branches of inquiry, including journalism.
Acquiescence in injustice, where popular opinion seems to demand it, is always a temptation for those in authority or a position of influence, just as standing over, in the face of strong pressure or contradiction, what has been correctly written or properly decided is rarely easy. Freedom of speech to foster the competition of ideas and competition for the truth; representative institutions; and an independent judiciary to distribute justice; these are key mechanisms in an open democratic society to attain the best and fairest outcomes.
Citizens today are bombarded with claims on their attention from advertising agencies, news reports of every kind, and requests for support from voluntary organisations, including political parties.
All claims are presented as statements of fact, even when some may be extremely contestable. They are intended to influence and persuade, not just to inform.
The citizen has a difficult job sometimes discerning disinterested statements of the truth.
Politicians of all parties in all democracies complain of media bias and distortion, which can be real enough. Sometimes it seems as if we want the media to be consistently more dispassionate and objective than we are, a kind of impartial umpire or referee of the political game. Yet the advertising campaign, which flatteringly suggests that, while this paper looks at life, readers do the living, is surely overly modest. Almost every day in The Irish Times there is high-octane advocacy alongside news.
Next to lawyers, journalists belong to one of the professions that has done the most to bring about political and social transformation. Think of the influence of Thomas Davis, Pádraic Pearse and Arthur Griffith.
Joe Duffy, calling recently for a march on the Department of Justice in the wake of the striking down of the law on statutory rape, sounded faintly like Camille Desmoulins, "Aux barricades, citoyens".
As the most influential journalist of all, Karl Marx, once put it; "it is not a question of understanding the world, but of changing it".
In complete contrast, the first psalm extols those who have "not sat in the assembly of the scornful. Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and they meditate on his law day and night". There has to be a middle path for the legislator and the commentator between corrosive cynicism and some contemplative and eirenic state of mind.
There is nothing wrong with acting on the basis of an informed point of view, while always looking out for ways to improve balance, precision and performance.
Having a pronounced point of view is not a licence to be careless with facts, or ignorant of known objections and counter-arguments, or a freedom to exaggerate grains of truth out of all proportion, except one is being satirical or entertaining, or playing to egregious prejudice, as a few are paid to do.
Much public discourse and analysis is based on conventional simplifications of complex situations. The truth, closely examined, is full of nuances and qualifications.
Many events are reduced to a simple morality tale, with a limited cast, and personal credit or blame attributed, where success or failure is often as much the result of good or faulty teamwork as of the quality of leadership.
It is time for this columnist with some regret to lay down the pen, and to feel once again, in the words of James Joyce, "sufficient unto the day is the newspaper thereof". It has been a great privilege and stimulus to write for nearly three years for a paper that espouses high standards and tries to lead opinion, even if it has a few blind spots. I feel also a little sentimentality, coming from a family that would have faithfully taken the paper long ago. It is a measure of confidence in its place today that it could reprint in its journal supplement its contemporaneous editorials on the 1916 Rising.
Having been selected as a general election candidate for Tipperary South, such objectivity as is possible would inevitably come under increasing strain, creating a potential conflict of interest. Besides, the parting words of Charles Haughey, little more than six weeks ago, at the top of the steps in Abbeville, still ring in my ears: "The constituency, the constituency, the constituency".