Babylon 5 The Illusions of Truth Questions To Consider
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Reporter Dan Randall of the Interstellar News Network (ISN) boards Babylon 5 with cruel intentions. He acts as one of President Clark's propaganda puppets and works to promote a type of pravda, or in other words, a heavily modified truth. He is able to capture footage from the ship and manipulate it into a storyline that completely falsifies the activities and motives of Babylon 5. Randall insists that there is no such thing as a completely objective journalist, but that he, and others still on ISN, want to try to slip the truth through in small pieces, the best they can do under the circumstances. Randall asks Sheridan to work with him, which will allow Sheridan's point of view will be represented otherwise, there's no guarantee. Sheridan trusts Randall to report on behalf of Babylon 5 in order to improve the beliefs people on Earth hold for the ship.
Randall takes numerous scenes from his report and displays them in a manner that degrades the motives of the ship. For example, Randall asks Lennier about the ship he noticed being repaired outside Babylon 5 when he arrived. Lennier explains that those ships, belonging to the League of Non-Aligned of Worlds, were damaged during the war, and are being repaired so they will be able to get back home safely. Lennier says that the station charges only for the material needed for the repairs, which Randall finds very generous...