Lance Armstrong and our culture of lying

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)

So I’m a little confused by the world, right now.

I mean, here we are in the so-called “Information Age” and it’s pretty-much impossible anymore to know if the information we’re getting is true, or how much of it is an outright lie.

The mainstream media hasn’t been that much help along the way, what with its obsessive need to feed the ravenous 24-hour news cycle, and its tragic addiction to posting something “breaking” or having something “new” to report. Fact is, the difference between “true” and “not-so-much-true” seems to have become less important than getting the story up first.

LANCE ARMSTRONG: As for Lance Armstrong; thanks for nothing. I wanted to believe you all these years, and I stubbornly refused to accept the jealous accusations thrown at you by the French press. And how do you repay loyal fans? With a huge, steaming, rotting, smelly pack of bald-faced lies, stacked upon lies of convenience, piled up on top of the lies made up to cover the other lies.

And what’s with this story surrounding this Heisman Trophy runner-up football player from Notre Dame? Did any of the reporters who kept repeating the story about his (fictional) “girlfriend’s” death even think about checking even one of the facts? No, of course not; it was too good a story to pass up, so they didn’t even “Google” her name.

And don’t even get me started on the politicians….

IT’S CALLED “REPORTING.” When we go to the library to look for a book, everything’s nicely organized in the racks. We can browse through “fiction,” or “non-fiction;” it’s pretty clear-cut what we’re looking at.

But when it comes to the news, there’s a whole other array of options. There’s “sensationalism,” “propaganda,” “gossip,” “hyperbole,” “spin,” “liberal agenda,” “conservative bias,” “party-line,” “entertainment,” “polling data (funded by who?)” “PR,” and more.

What happened to simple, thorough, “this is what we learned and here are our sources” reporting?

TRUST: There’s a lot that we can do as individuals to improve the world that we live in. We can be salt and light in our communities, we can work to encourage and build up people, we can give our all to promote “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy. (Philippians 4:8).

But when it comes to trust we’re going to need one-another’s help:

• I can’t single-handedly restore credibility to government; that’s something we have to work for together (and irrespective of party affiliation).
• You can’t change the predilection of our culture to exaggerate, to lie, and to bear false witness; that’s going to take a consistent demonstration (and celebration) of the beauty of truth by the majority of the rest of us.
• No single individual has the power to turn off the relentless stream of trash and gossip that defines so much of television; that’s going to take a deliberate commitment to decency by every single one of us who says we value what is right (and that number should count in the tens of millions).

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to get the ball rolling; are you on board?

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)

- DEREK