Looking for the Lie

When considering the type of audience associated with The New York Times Magazine, it is fairly safe to compare it to the audience of The New York Times daily news paper; a wide range of readers across most of the spectrum of age, class, and political association. The important distinction that must be made is that of the difference between the reader’s interests when reading either source. Newspaper articles function to sum up current news events succinctly so as to keep step with daily reporting requirements, acting under narrower limits in page space and reader attention span to inform rather than convince or provoke more abstract ideas. Magazines print far more infrequently and tend to devote more time to persuasion, and generally limit themselves to a handful of longer works on topics with a far broader relevance than the day-to-day topics presented in most news articles. As a consequence, the same reader of The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine will have different interests and expectations depending on which he is reading.

With an article like “Looking for the Lie,” the mere format of the medium changes drastically how the readers will follow it; they will expect a piece not focusing on a single specific event but an overall concept or idea which encompasses several. As for interest, the format once again influences readers significantly: where newspaper readers will tend to scan only for articles of interest (front page, business, sports), an article in a magazine is expected to have a level of relevance simply because it has been presented in such a medium and so may be read at least partially on this merit alone. Magazines feature a limited number of articles and so any of those chosen to be included are typically well written and sufficiently interesting to justify the longer read. Scanning still occurs, but articles on a far wider range of topics will be read by the same sample of readers. Consequently, these readers will often be far less informed and will need a large portion of the article to be devoted to explaining details such as topic history, which is typically excluded from news articles which supply only immediately relevant details and expect a greater amount of prior knowledge on the part of the reader. The lack of this prior knowledge does more than require magazine articles to include more information, it also makes the readers far more receptive to the arguments presented by the writer. Most readers of “Looking for the Lie” know of the existence of polygraph tests, and a smaller percentage of these individuals would know anything about the controversy surrounding them in terms of accuracy. Of the total reader base a marginal number would have any prior understanding of the details of modern attempts at replacing or enhancing the polygraph.

So what is at stake for the reader? Whatever the author suggests. The author presents not just the story as newspapers do but the context in which it is read; she is responsible for starting with readers in possession of little more than misconceptions of “lie detectors” and creating authorities with a grasp of and an opinion on the intricacies of the polygraph’s history, place within the judicial system, and the implications for its use in relation to some of our more prominent political issues like the war on terror. Next she presents the issue: modern attempts at improving or replacing the polygraph. She explains the need for these improvements and the means with which they are being sought, the different schools of though as to how this should be accomplished, and then shows the readers some of the more recent devices developed to do so. Finally, she reveals some concerns held by the authorities on the topic, such as those who compare the search for the perfect lie detector to the Manhattan project and so forth. By the end, she has provided the readers with a packaged deal: a complete topic, school of thought, handful of examples, and an opinion. Unfortunately, by the nature of writing and bias she has also presented the reader with a one sided argument that gives the illusion of diversity; as well researched and balanced as it may be the fact remains that it has all been presented through a single author’s lens either subconsciously or otherwise.

The potential dangers of this set up do not stem from the writer but from the reader; as with readers of Esquire articles concerning string theory it is far too easy for an audience to simply embody all points and arguments made by a single author and consider themselves informed. For the most part this is harmless, as with groups debating their topic of interest in supermarket lines or barber shops, but in some cases this becomes dangerous. An obvious example of this can be seen in the political arena with outlets such as The Daily Show or The Weekly Standard magazine; as informed and convincing as the writers of the respective outlets are, they represent very narrow pieces of the wide range of valid opinions on the topics being presented, and in many cases these narrow opinions represent extremes. The solution for this problem is simple: expand the reader’s sources. Understanding topics as presented by multiple viewpoints allows readers to come to see the topic more neutrally, and by learning a greater number of facts the reader can ultimately form their own informed decision on the issue. While this ideal is certainly limited by the will of the reader to go this extra mile, magazine articles such as “Looking for the Lie” still stand as excellent starting points for any individuals with the drive to seek information. For everyone else, they’re a good place to find neat facts, but are deceptively dangerous.