Review of Truth (2015) by Ken S — 30 Mar 2016

Well, sadly, this rendition of real life truth in journalism seems quite accurate, a significant rarity in Hollywood's "...based on a true story..." motif. Very much like "All the President's Men", it tells the story of an example of the 4th estate and it's essential role in demonstrating, if not actually balancing out, the abuses of power in government. Here, of course, our champion fails and that is the real story within the story.

Much like the messages on the barn in George Orwell's "Animal Farm", the truth becomes less important than the messenger or the language. With respect to my somewhat overly simplistic Orwellian metaphor, I couldn't help from thinking of the continued evolution of the pigs' "The 7 Commandments" where Squealer changed the first commandment from "All Animals are Created Equal" adding "...But Some Animals are More Equal Than Others.".

The best line in the whole movie for me was when Dan Rather notes to Mary Mapes that everything in American journalism changed when corporate media discovered that their various news departments could be profitable. The supreme irony here is that no news department had ever been profitable, until "60 Minutes". Talk about best of intentions. Good grief, Charlie Brown.

The question now becomes, who or what will be our new Champion? Who or what will be our new 4th Estate? I fear that, if we don't find a like replacement fast, our very own "Animal Farm" experiment in democracy will devolve into just another variation of the very authoritarian system from which it originally rebelled...