A comment from Goin’ South sums it up:
“What is truth,” Pilate asked.
In this age when the brains, tongues and typing fingers of scientists, academics, journalists and ‘public intellectuals’ are for sale, it’s quite a challenging question.
The truth is whatever you can pay to make it.
Yasha Levine and Mark Ames have launched the S.H.A.M.E. Project, which stands for “Shame the Hacks who Abuse Media Ethics.”
Its approach is to provide information about the background and funding sources of well-recognized journalists and pundits so that the public will be in a better position to recognize bias and hidden agendas in their reporting and analysis. You can find a S.H.A.M.E dossier on Gladwell here.