There is so much famous literature with an unreliable narrator, but the very essence of journalism is that the narrator must be completely reliable (or at least be sharing "the best obtainable version of the truth," as Halderman puts it).
As far as danah boyd's views: they are about as bleak as possible. I must admit that truth is quite slippery, and it's not just Trump and his fantasies (endlessly repeated from all perspectives). It's an old problem, as I was reminded over Easter by Pilate's question: "What is truth?" He doesn't really get an answer.
For literature teachers, this search for truth is their bread and butter, and they prefer it in the form of "higher truths" found in fiction. They have a point -- we learn a lot from Shakespeare and Milton -- but what happens to a society in which most adults have not read a book in the past year, and in which reading fiction is not in their top 50 things to do... ever?
BTW: the preference for truth found in great fiction is one reason journalism education will never be fully embraced by NCTE and the vast majority of English teachers (my cynical view). Yes, there is a lot of talk about AP Lang and the need for students to "act like investigative reporters," but most English teachers, in their hearts, don't want to give up on fiction as the primary path to enlightenment.
I don't see how journalism education can continue if we are forced to abandon the core notion that there really IS some form of truth about events. Ironically, this may force journalism educators to have "faith" that truth exists, even in the face of "smart" people proclaiming that truth doesn't exist anymore (if it ever did). We need to hope that this belief system (that journalists are striving to report and reveal truth) will outlast the rising sense that the truth simply can't be ascertained.
As I get older, I begin to wonder if the REAL connection that would make a difference in schools is between media education and social studies. There is clearly some energy behind the "we need to educate citizens about the Constitution and laws and what responsibilities Americans have to their fellow citizens"... in short, in civics education. Those social studies teachers focused on history may be much more likely to care about the search for objective truth than English teachers. Social studies teachers are also more accepting of non-fiction writing as the ultimate in verbal expression. Great non-fiction (histories, for example) tends to read like great stories, focusing on characters and setting and conflict and resolution. As Matthew Arnold said, "Journalism is literature in a hurry." And history teachers are quite comfortable with history being revised as new facts are discovered.
I was one who advocated for stronger connections to our friends in Language Arts, but I now wonder if this was too simplistic, and too convenient, based on the fact that most journalism teachers were also in the English department. That was a structural convenience, ignoring the chasm between journalism and literature.
JEA and media educators have all the facts on their side when pointing out that thinking like a journalist is the best approach to teaching literacy, but the facts are not enough. Heck, when science teachers start seeing that facts are not enough (for individuals and for some communities), it's clear that less objective areas are in trouble.
One question that needs to be addressed (perhaps by smarter people than me): what factors are necessary for teachers trained as literature teachers (that would be all English majors) to bridge the chasm and embrace journalism as a valid (maybe the best) way to tell stories, to find truth, to become more human?
I was certainly a classically trained English major, but I didn't teach like one (after a while). Most advisers were not journalism majors. Few even had a journalism methods class. I sort of fell into advising, since it came with the gig, but what makes some teachers dig in and read about and study how journalism works, while most advisers drop out of the profession within a year or two?
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