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Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Daniel's in Wichita on Coast to Coast Daniel Hide. That's

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Speaker 1: right to you. I appreciate you taking this time. I

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Speaker 1: have three comments, and then I wanted to ask the

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Speaker 1: question that you can't answer. You can't answer because I

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Speaker 1: can't afford to pay situation. Sorry, I'm old Vietnam veteran. U.

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Speaker 1: I talked to you before. I had a lot of

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Speaker 1: Franciscan influence. Oh yeah, I remember you. Yeah, childhood. I

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Speaker 1: was extremely depressed the other night last night, December twenty eighth.

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Speaker 1: It was the anniversaries my son committing sus Oh, I'm

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Speaker 1: so sorry. That just breaks my heart. How old was he?

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Speaker 1: He was twenty nine. He came home from Afghanistan and uh, unfortunately, uh,

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Speaker 1: the VA didn't help him. But what I wanted to

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Speaker 1: address was not the sadness of that. I have an

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Speaker 1: eight year old cat and this is the middle of

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Speaker 1: the winter in Kansas, and I was asking you how

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Speaker 1: I enjoyed Kansas last time. And the wind is blowing

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Speaker 1: and colder, and Minnesota it's whipping. The wind is whipping

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Speaker 1: these days. Yeah, Well, my my eight year old cat,

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Speaker 1: mean cat brought in a baby kitten. Oh yeah, that

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Speaker 1: was now nourished and it's mothered, probably died, and I

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Speaker 1: got it. He's got it right now, and so I

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Speaker 1: decided the naming he and I love that. My main

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Speaker 1: question to you, sir, is this, Uh, I am concerned

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Speaker 1: about people, about our world, and you're a professor communications

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Speaker 1: not theology, correct, right? Could you uh answer question? And

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Speaker 1: I'll hang up so I can hear your answer, or

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Speaker 1: I'll listen to it. I have a tob hearing like you.

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Speaker 1: I suffer from an inner ear disease injury from running

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Speaker 1: engines on jets. But my question is this, how do

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Speaker 1: we decipher and how do you teach your students about

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Speaker 1: all of the facts on the flooding of information that

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Speaker 1: we have now on the internet about you can get

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Speaker 1: facts on completely diametrical opposing views, sure, and how and

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Speaker 1: they can give you, they can quote you facts on

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Speaker 1: either side and everything in between. Right, how do we

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Speaker 1: decipher what the truth is? Good, brothers, I was waiting

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Speaker 1: for you to use the T word, So don't up yet,

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Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. Let me say this is a really

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Speaker 1: interesting and ongoing conversation that goes on amongst journalists, amongst

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Speaker 1: communications specialists. So there's a problem that we have in

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Speaker 1: our culture of thinking of ourselves as finders of truth.

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Speaker 1: And I think your Franciscan mentors would agree with me

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Speaker 1: wholeheartedly that I think the best we can do on

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Speaker 1: any one topic, like a story, a news story, is

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Speaker 1: we should be happy to be finders of facts. But

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Speaker 1: facts are not in and of themselves truths. They may

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Speaker 1: point to a truth, But as I would argue to

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Speaker 1: any student, and I argued this in a paper last year,

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Speaker 1: is that truth is actually when we're talking about journalism,

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Speaker 1: is are facts over time? Right? I mean the ancients

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Speaker 1: going long before Jesus, the ancients were trying to figure

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Speaker 1: out what is truth. And I think that we could

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Speaker 1: settle on the idea of facts over time, that that's

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Speaker 1: how that's how we know something is true, is that

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Speaker 1: it isn't just true for the moment. It's not a

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Speaker 1: fact as it appears, because frequently facts just turn into

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Speaker 1: data points. And so that's where we can get distracted

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Speaker 1: by data points. And we live in a data driven society.

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Speaker 1: So as you suggested, different you know, polar opposite viewpoints

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Speaker 1: can all come up with data points that support their

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Speaker 1: point of view, but they may not be facts yet.

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Speaker 1: They may just be a point that that day was true.

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Speaker 1: So you could say it was a transient fact, but

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Speaker 1: it's not a truth, and truth won't be revealed until

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Speaker 1: those facts are examined over time. So I reserved a

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Speaker 1: lot of judgment to if I could say about a

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Speaker 1: lot of things. I look at things and let me

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Speaker 1: give you a data point that was very disturbing, and

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Speaker 1: I hope you'll resonate with this that the VA didn't

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Speaker 1: spent just a small fraction of the funds that it

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Speaker 1: had to help with suicide prevention for veterans. They had

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Speaker 1: six point two million dollars this year alone to advertise

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Speaker 1: crisis hotline for suicide prevention. As of September of twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 1: they had only spent fifty seven thousand dollars, less than

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Speaker 1: one percent of that budget to try to stop, you know,

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Speaker 1: people like your son from committing suicide, from giving them

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Speaker 1: an option. Now, that's a it's a it's a fact.

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Speaker 1: It's a data point that if it stands up to examination,

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Speaker 1: we could we could say as a fact. But does

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Speaker 1: it say that Does that mean that the truth is

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Speaker 1: the VA doesn't care about suicides by soldiers? I don't

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Speaker 1: think that we could make that point about it being

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Speaker 1: a truth. Now we take that over time and maybe

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Speaker 1: that's what we'll find out that they for whatever reason,

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Speaker 1: they don't. But that's the difference. And I think it's

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Speaker 1: a tragedy that they that they haven't done that. The

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Speaker 1: VA should be spending every penny it has to prevent

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Speaker 1: if they if it's already allocated, it's in the bank,

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Speaker 1: they should be spending every penny to reach out to

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Speaker 1: soldiers who are suffering from PTSD from any war or

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Speaker 1: any you know, just from service and use everything they

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Speaker 1: have at their disposal to keep that from happening. So

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Speaker 1: that's what I teach my students is let's be careful

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Speaker 1: about the use of the word truth. Let's not pretend

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Speaker 1: that as journalists we can be truth tellers. Yet it's

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Speaker 1: good enough to be finders of facts. That's hard enough,

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Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people out there that need

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Speaker 1: to know more. Listen to More Coast to Coast AM

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Speaker 1: every weeknight at one am Eastern and go to Coast

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