ASSUMPTIONS, ASPIRATIONS AND ANNOYANCES

by Miko Johnston

While driving through a nearby town, I spotted the flashing lights of a half-dozen police cars ahead. One sat parallel to the driveway of an elementary school and the rest parked outside a housing complex across the street. My first thought caused my stomach to lurch – active shooter at the school! As I drove past the line of black and whites I saw two officers in the walkway leading into the complex and two young men kneeling on the ground, their hands clasped behind their heads. The police had been called about some mischief in one of the apartments. Whew. Nothing to do with the school. On reflection I recalled the police car parked in the school’s driveway did not block the entrance, as I’d expect if a threat existed there. I continued driving, but the incident stayed with me.

You can understand my assumption, given the frequency of events like I’d imagined, as well as the climate of violence and hostility in our country. All signs that led to my incorrect conclusion. But I hated that I automatically jumped to that conclusion because this really happened. Fact, not fiction.

I don’t mind being fooled or misled in fiction; in fact I enjoy it. The “aha!” moment of surprise when I learn the truth is part of the pleasure when I read, watch a tv series or a movie. I aspire to do the same in my fiction writing, with one exception. As an historical fiction author, I never mislead with history. The pleasure of fooling the reader, or being fooled, doesn’t extend to non-fiction, or at least, it shouldn’t.

I worked as a journalist at a television station during the eighties, when the golden era of news began its downward spiral. Until then we presented the news as information: what happened, where, to whom, and if we knew, why and how. Every story had to be verified by at least two independent sources before broadcasting it. Sometimes early reports would be inaccurate, especially in high-drama situations like hijackings, shootouts or terrorism, but we’d always update viewers with corrections.  We limited any opinions to PSAs – public service announcements – separate from the evening news.

I lost that job when I disagreed with the news director’s approach to a story: a man facing divorce and separation from his children was arrested when he hired a “hitman”  (an undercover policeman) to murder his wife. This occurred a few months after a Shiite Muslim man had hijacked an airplane. The suspect happened to be a Shiite, which had nothing to do with the story, but it dominated the lede. Sensationalism boosted ratings, and that became paramount as competition with other broadcast news sources grew.

When I read fiction, go to the movies or stream scripted series, I want entertainment, escape, or just to have some fun. That might include being misled or even tricked into thinking something “is” when it really isn’t. Unlike in real life, part of the enjoyment of a good mystery or suspenseful story, along with figuring out whodunnit, is the expectation that the bad deed rarely goes unpunished. Real life is messy and problems can’t always be solved by the end of the episode or the final chapters of the book. In non-fiction, documentaries and news, I prefer the facts straight up, with no embellishment or opinion. That’s become harder to find when I read the newspaper or switch on the nightly news. Journalists often blur the line between reporting and proselytizing. Too often, they unapologetically violate it. As the late NY senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”

I’ve frequently riffed on Mark Twain’s quote about how fiction has to be believable even if it isn’t true, while non-fiction has to be true, even if it isn’t believable. Now I’m questioning whether that line still exists in present-day media.

We live in an era when the information we get may cause doubt as to its accuracy, in part because we witness or hear things that would defy believability on a daily basis. Situations that would have shocked us yesterday seem, if not normal, then normalized. How – or will – it change the way we view both fiction and non-fiction?  

Miko Johnston, a founding member of The Writers in Residence, is the author of the historical fiction series, “A Petal in the Wind”, as well as a contributor to several anthologies. Miko lives in Washington (the big one) with her rocket scientist husband. Contact her at mikojohnstonauthor@gmail.com