The Reith Lectures archive. Among them

- 1948 Bertrand Russell, Authority and the Individual.
- 1953 Robert Oppenheimer, Science and the Common Understanding.
- 1999 Anthony Giddens, Runaway world.
- 2003 Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, The Emerging Mind.

On editorial journalism: lessons from complexity

Sometimes, the notion of truth is straightforward. This might be the case for many specific issues of investigative journalism. But truth not always comes in its atomic dress. As the number of news is accumulated, editorial matters arise and with it a new challenge about truth. In fact, in the continuum from "atomic" to "composite" truth there is an act of creation, an act of fiction which is unavoidable. This phenomena may as well be compared with the transition from statistical mechanics with its clear notion of observables (velocity and position) to the realm of thermodynamics with own version of observables. In the intermediate regime: out of equilibrium phenomena, defining observables (as truth or facts) becomes a real challenge. The former may be compared with the intermediate regime between "editorial" and "case by case" journalism. Every editorial board and in less degree but not the least, every columnist, has to face these challenges. So when a journalist talks about truth, he should take care that his humanist discourse do not render the matter as a simple issue of autonomy and will for truth because something like the figure above may end up happening.