CommunityNewsPeopleRon Baker

Off the Record or Is the Record Off?

Reporting a story of what has happened often conflicts with what others have seen or heard. This reality has become painfully obvious in the last few years. The comment section in most social media reminds us that more than one perspective is at play. In these comments people mention what they have heard “off the record” accounts – which disputes the official record.

If you are reporting a story – for social gatherings, public consumption or even around the dinner table – you need to be convincing. One of the great adages of fiction writing is that you must create a believable environment. There must be consistency within the world you create. That consistency may be, “everything is crazy”, which then makes a consistent world totally crazy. The reader accepts this as truth and happily reads on!

A reporter is often left with a dizziness in their head when they encounter an unusual story. They go round and round trying to make sense of the happenings. One way to expedite getting to the heart of the story is to go to informants who claim to have a corner on the truth. The reporter tells the informant that the story is “off the record”. No direct reference will be made to the informant. They will remain anonymous. There will be no repercussions.

Hopefully, the absurdity of a story is explained in a sensible way – even if the initial story the reporter heard seemed crazy.

Let’s take an absurd story from history. Jesus of Nazareth is reported dead, then alive even though he is dead. The leadership of the day hears the story from guards who were watching to make sure that nothing strange happened at Jesus’ grave site. But Jesus’ body is gone and is never found. Off the record the guards tell the local leadership (who would be reporting on the situation to the community) that Jesus was in the tomb and then not in the tomb. They hadn’t seen any grave robbers. If the story is to remain consistent, Jesus is alive.

This puts the local officials at a disadvantage. These editors of the community news then tell the story from their perspective – Jesus is dead and his activist followers stole his body. The guards have been paid off. But the guards off-the-record story somehow becomes rumoured about the community.

Perhaps we can learn from thousands of years that have passed. In Jesus’ example, off-the-record collusion still haunts the pages of history. If you are to follow the “official” reporting of Jesus’ death, his fanatical followers actions over many millennia is totally unjustified.

But if the record is off, if the real story is that Jesus is alive, then perhaps that supposed mayhem is justified. For those of us generations removed from the actual happening, perhaps a greater examination of the Jesus story must be undertaken.

Let me push this into our day and age. Stories of injustice surface constantly that are generations, centuries old. We re-examine them to determine if a new action needs to be taken. Perhaps apologies are to be offered, inquiries to be formed and we try to right the world in which we live.

To remain consistent we must constantly be seekers of truth! And live within the truth.

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