About a million years ago, literary, critical and cultural theorists accepted the philosophical point that 'truth' is not an objective category, but a subjective one: the same event attracts multiple viewpoints derived from the witnesses' cultural contexts. There is no truth, there are truths. This doesn't mean that some positions aren't plain wrong, of course.
It's finally struck Andrew Hayward, head of CBS news in the US that this will make a difference to how news is reported. There's an interesting discussion here.
The danger in wild cultural relativism is that all voices are given equal weight in a free-for-all regulated only by who has the wittiest spiel or loudest voice. We already see this on Fox News (where any anti-Democrat/anti-environment/anti-health care ranter is treated as the Metatron) and even on the BBC, where climate change deniers are treated as equals despite representing 2% of scientists, and many of whom have no scientific credentials. Truth should fend for itself, says Heyward. OK, but how is the intelligent but non-specialist viewer meant to discriminate? Big Media has a role, like it or not, as a gatekeeper and referee.
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