From the Editors August 15, 2011 Issue

Truth matters

The Editors

“You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts,” the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once famously said. Yet, if the logic of the saying seems obvious, the efforts to defy it seem endless. 

During one recent week, the news reported on one high-profile US politician who was spotlighted for repeatedly retelling a moment of American history—and folding some invented “facts” into the retelling. That same week, another politician, from the opposing political party, told a series of untruths about events in his personal life. And across the Atlantic, a leader on the world stage told lies both to and about his people. 

The habit of ignoring truth, whether in politics or elsewhere, degrades the public discourse. It slows momentum in the workplace and is a drag on the economy. At the same time, a pattern of truthfulness in speech and action elevates the political and nonpolitical conversation, and gets them back on a surer footing. Trust becomes more the norm, and reasserts its healthy impact on society. The truth matters—it matters to us all.

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