If fiction tells a lie to get to the truth, traditional journalism/non-fiction/etc is supposed to be truths that tell the truth. But it’s more complicated than that. Journalism is a very thin veneer of a very particular concept of civilization sitting uncomfortably atop a boundlessly strange world.
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So I understand the impulse behind :Vocalo, I really do, for the same reasons I have very mixed feelings about online comment sections. On one hand, the comment sections in your typical generalist publication are a fetid backwater of banality and insanity, and who cares? On the other hand… maybe that’s good? Maybe it’s a necessary corrective to news and editorial, with their assumption that a non-trivial number of people care more about Obama’s long-term energy policy than whether he’s a secret Muslim radical?
