TRUTH - The First Casualty of War

Thousands of years ago, the Greek writer, Aeschylus, noted wryly: “God is not averse to deceit in a just cause.” He was justifying lies, distortions and fake news under a cloak of morality. This is, of course, a standard practice of conquering, colonising and empire building national entities that is now acknowledged under the cliché: Truth is the first casualty of war.

But now in our digital age, distortions and instant myth making have become much more prevalent, widespread and dangerous. Because, while we all have greater access to information it is usually via social platforms, owned and controlled by elites who have their own ideological axes to grind.

Journalism, it was once said, was “the first draft of history”. This applied particularly to conflict situations where independent journalists provided firsthand reports of events on the ground. Today, aggressive forces either ban journalists or “embed” them with their forces, largely ensuring distorted reportage.

This is the background to our latest podcast where we also deal briefly with the weaponizing of language, where a word such as holocaust emerges with a proprietorial label.