Book Illustrates How Often Issues Are Misrepresented To American Public
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- An investigative journalist says our nation's future depends on finding truth when governments and corporations are publicly dishonest.
Journalist Charles Lewis says his book 935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America's Moral Integrity illustrates just how frequently issues have been misrepresented to the American public.
The title comes from the compilation his Center for Public Integrity made of statements the George W. Bush administration issued before the Iraq war and how those misrepresentations endured.
"I started noticing that 60 percent of the public still thought, a year later, that there were still weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even though the facts were otherwise declared by international commissions and all kinds of experts and even the President who led us to that war."
Lewis draws parallels with LBJ before Vietnam and tobacco executives insisting their products weren't addictive.
"To me, it was a clarion call that we better pay attention here, folks, because in many instances, we didn't."
Lewis asks, if a nation doesn't know the truth about the present, how can it solve its future problems?
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