One of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s classic comments holds a place of honor on a wall of my cubicle: “The truth is more important than the facts.”
I keep the quote because it’s humbling. Wright observed that as much as we may admire the depth of our informed opinions, tough rhetoric and intellectual prowess (all of which I encounter daily), the facts and expertise we command may create much pointless froth and narcissism unless and until they are brought to bear on discovering reality.
The light of reality may expose difficult situations, the architect knew, but it’s needed to see flawed and unreliable details.
Wright’s thought also mirrors what most readers expect of journalism: Expose what’s going on, and explain the implications.
Those ideas strike me as appropriate for readers, journalists and the political establishment to consider on the fifth anniversary of 9-11.
Predictable coverage will explore many consequences in the war on terror that was launched after al Qaeda terrorists flew hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon while heroic passengers in a fourth hijacked plane sacrificed their lives when a recapture attempt ended in the crash of the aircraft in Pennsylvania.
A flood of anniversary coverage began last week and will continue this week, no doubt rolling out more facts and angles than most of us can absorb.
Presumably, part of the coverage will address what we still don’t know — the unsettling voids left by unanswered questions that readers and journalists have asked since 2001.
Two lingering questions in particular seem to haunt readers who want truth and aren’t satisfied with the facts that are on the table: Why haven’t we captured Osama bin Laden? Why did we invade Iraq?
Observers of that stripe stand in contrast with other people who argue that those questions have long since been answered. Perhaps they were, but the thick residue of skepticism suggests that no explanation has been tendered that sates our curiosity.
Additionally, it’s difficult to gauge (1) how much candid explanation the public could endure before sensibilities are compromised and (2) the extent to which the media should even be concerned about such matters.
That was evident as I looked back at the many reactions of readers to the Star-Telegram’s coverage of the attacks in three editions that were published within about 12 hours on Sept. 11, 2001.
More than any other content, one picture created sharp divisions among readers because it captured the combined force of fact and reality in a single, compelling image: a photo on Page 10A of an unidentified man falling to his death after leaping away from the inferno that was engulfing the WTC’s upper floors.
The man was one of many trapped workers who jumped from their offices to escape the flames. Here’s a capsuled sampling of readers’ pro-con reaction to that picture:
Distasteful: “I found the picture extremely distasteful. I could not continue reading the newspaper. As I stood crying, my husband reached over, took the newspaper from my hand and discarded [it] immediately.”
Spoke to me: “I studied the photo of the man falling from the building. It spoke to me of the extreme personal horror of the day more than perhaps any other photo. We readers need to be exposed to images like these.”
Disgusting: “You crossed the line of taste and decency in publishing that photo. This action on your part is simply disgusting.”
Not offended: “Sorry, people may be offended at the photo of a man falling to his death, but that is the way war is. Tell it like it is.”
Unacceptable: “Just the pictures of the buildings and rubble are nearly more than we should have to view a million times, but a picture of a helpless man plunging to his death is a disgusting and unacceptable breach of human decency.”
Important: “I see this picture as one of the most important taken during these days. To blind our eyes to what has happened is not the answer.”
So went the early debate. Five years later, the arguments and divisions have expanded and intensified exponentially as the war on terror has grown into an awesome mass of facts based on investigation, various measures, documentation and speculation.
At best, those facts give us a piecemeal grasp of what’s really going on — and the implications. How much truth has become public knowledge and how much remains hidden, either deliberately or for lack of examination, is anyone’s guess.
All of the information we have is important, Frank Lloyd Wright said. But as we commemorate this bittersweet anniversary, we may want to wonder about how much truth we have — and how much we want.
