Funny Story on How I Lost Trust in the Media

Some years ago I had an interview with a mainstream Newsweek-like magazine. The reporter had this idea of me as Gamerus Nerdus Basementus: I eat junk food only, I don’t care what I wear, etc.

I told her I actually care a lot about what I eat, that I try to avoid artificial food, and I gave her a little speech on the ketogenic diet. Then I added I mostly buy clothes in Paris. My future wife lived there at the time, and in those years back then you couldn’t buy anything interesting in Warsaw.

She sighed that I “destroy her narrative”.

When the issue with the interview was published, I bought it, and noticed this little thing near the end of the article: “He doesn’t care about what he wears or what he eats.”

The narrative turned out to be stronger that the truth. And it’s not even that the truth wasn’t interesting. But it wasn’t what she had in her head before she actually interviewed me. If the facts don’t fit the hypothesis, too bad for the facts.

I knew this article was riddled with lies, but I also knew it must have looked true to the general public. Just like anything else that was not this piece looked true to me.

Sad (okay, so maybe the story is not that funny) but quite illuminating moment for me.

Obviously, not every reporter is like this. But I never looked at the media the same way again, and never “listened and believed” again neither.