Tuesday, October 7, 2008

British prankster Cathal Morrow plans to live in "no-lie" zone for a year. Rubbish! This is a complete non-story reported by an irresponsible Guardian and now translated into French by an irresponsible French website that got TAKEN IN by the prankster from the UK. When you ever learn, Messieurs?



Is it possible to live for a year without lying?

-- British man plans to try to find out, but is he telling the truth?

by Emmanuelle KANT


RONDON -- Newspapers these days are full of unchecked and under-reported stories
that later turn out to be not true. People call up a reporter and tell
them they are going to do such and such, an incredible feat, and then
the reporter duly writes the story up and it goes live on the Web for
all the world to read, and then later, one never knows if the story
panned out. About ten percent of what we read in the newspapers these
days turns out to be fake news. Unchecked news. News that was never
fact-checked.

It's easy to do. You hire a good PR agent, he or she plants the story
in an unsuspecting newspaper in Britain or the USA, the blogosphere
picks it up, and boom, a new world-historial hero artist is born. But
these stories sometimes turn out not to be completely true. Well,
maybe, at the beginning, the plan was a good one, but the execution of
the idea sometimes lags way behind reality. However, we never read
about these failed PR stories. We only get the positive spin at the
beginning, the book deal, the possible movie deal, it all sounds so
exciting and real. But was it? Is all of what we read in the
newspapers true?

Case in point. A newspaper in Britain, which shall go nameless for now
-- and the UK is famous for publishing fake news stories that later
turn out to be completely untrue -- although they make for good
reading! -- a newspaper in London is now reporting that a bloke in
Spain, but a British bloke, "plans" to go a whole year without lying.
A noble cause, a noble project. His name is Cathal Morrow. Google the
news to read between the lines here.

Mr Morrow, 42, married and with two small children to support, "says"
he plans to write a book about his year-long experiment, and he has
already thought of a title: "The Complete Kant."


Hint, hint: Immanuel Kant, the philospher. Or should that be Emanuelle Kant?

- Hide quoted text -

Of course, the
newspaper does not tell us that Mr Morrow does not have a "publisher"
yet for his "unwritten" book, but who cares about those small details.
The news value of a hypeable story is paramount here.

Long live the tabloidization of our news, with great asissts from the
Internet. Right?

"The philosopher Immanuel Kant believed that telling lies was always
morally wrong. But is it possible to live without telling a single lie
for a whole year?" asks the Guardian writer in his first paragraph.
"That is the task that Cathal Morrow has set himself and he will let
us know next year if it is possible, when he has finished his book on
the experiment, to be called 'The Complete Kant'."

Movie rights, anyone? Sell the idea to Hollywood, even if the feat is
never actually carried out? Fifteen minutes of fame, multipled by all
the extra hours one gets now from the Internet and the blogosphere?
It's a great story. But is it true?

Morrow used to be the managing director of an IT recruitment company,
but quit seven years ago to write a novel about a photocopier salesman
who is perfecting a formula for finding his true self, Duncan
Campbell, the news enabler writes in his tabloidy story, adding:
"Despite appreciative initial responses, he never found a publisher
[for the book]."

So Mr Morrowe hits on the idea of a philosophical exploration of the
notion of truth, we learn. Noble calling, yes. Unable once more to
find a publisher, he has a novel idea: put a synopsis of the book on a
European social networking site called 'A Small World', seek backers
who will finance him for a year's writing in exchange for half of the
profits of the book, the Guardian reporter tells us. And then the
kicker: "A private equity company responded and has now agreed to
finance 'Morrow] for a year."

However, we never learn the name of this so-called private equity
company, and we never learn how much they will spot Mr Morrow in his
"no-lie zone", and we never never is this is the real deal or just
another Internet fantasy idea that will never pan out? I'm not sure.
I'm hedging my bets.

Morrow does tell the reporter one important character trait that is
worth watching here. "[It is]... the realisation of how much I lie to
myself, and what a tenuous grasp I have of the notion of truth,"
Morrow tells Campell, who duly writes it all down for posterity.

Oh, and another kicker here: "Since his first chapter is now online,
at thecompletekant.com, you can let him know how you think he's doing
so far." See? The book already has a first chapter, literary agents
can read it and bid for the publishing rights, movie agents can come
calling, it's all in the cards.

But is any of this really true? Will Mr Morrow ever finish his book
about "Kant"? Did he ever plan to write a book, or was this all a PR
ploy to get some money from backers and potential publishers without
lifting a finger?

I predict, and I am often wrong, so don't hang me for this, but I
predict that Mr Morrow will never write that book, that he will not
stay in the "no-lie zone" for a year, and that his propensity, as he
himself admits, for having a tenuous grasp of the notion of truth and
of lying to himself, of all people, will do him in. No lie.

Follow this story for a year. Let's see what "The Complete Kant" is all about.