FACT and FICTION.
Communicators are free to choose between fact and fiction,
but there must be a clear line between both.
If the writer or lecturer presents his production as
information, she/he is compromised to follow some fundamental rules.
Do not add. This means that writers of
nonfiction should not add to a report something that did not happen. To make
news clear and comprehensible, it is often necessary to subtract or condense.
Done without care or responsibility, even such subtraction can distort. We cross a more definite line into fiction
when we fabricate or add facts or images or sounds that were not there.
Do not deceive. This means that journalists
and researchers should never mislead the public in reproducing events. The
implied contract of all nonfiction is binding: The way it is represented is, to
the best of our knowledge, the way it happened. Anything that intentionally or unintentionally fools the audience
violates that compromise to tell the truth.
One of the usual forms of deception is the deliberate
confusion between opinion and factual information.
Disguise personal opinions as facts is frequent in theories based
on beliefs that are presented as
objective truth.
Also, mythologies that compete with rational though and
scientific methodology are presented as an alternative knowledge that doesn’t
require evidences.
This absence of reliable
evidences is justified by conspiracy theories that imply the existence of an
international cover-up. Given that extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence, as Carl Sagan said, in this case extraordinary claims demand extraordinary
conspiracies.
Of course, the existence of such conspiracy is “ validated” by
anonymous or discredited sources. This denies any credibility to the conspiracy
theorist.
If several extraterrestrial civilizations are in our planet
and in contact with the authorities, to keep the secret requires a universal
conspiracy. But the biggest cover-ups
multiply the risk of leaks. A secret shared by thousands becomes impossible to
remain undisclosed.
Needless is to say that NOBODY believes in such conspiracy,
not even those who invented it.
