In the old days when I was a reporter I got chewed out fairly often with themes like this running through someone’s diatribe about everything from labor unions versus corporations and cops versus robbers. They’d angrily ask, “Why won’t you report the TRUTH???”

Well, WHOSE truth?

David Poole has been covering NASCAR for about 10 years. You want controversy? Go to NASCAR. Here’s Poole’s take on a similar conversation he had last week with a stock car fan about truth.

OK, which version of “the truth” do you want me to write? Roush’s version, the garage area’s version or NASCAR’s version?
About all I can do is lay out all three and let you make your own judgment as a reader. I can try to ask as many people as I can what they think, but everybody you talk to has a bias one way or another.

Life in the Turn Lane: Wheat from chaff and fact from fiction

What I would tell you, though, is to be wary of anybody who acts like they’ve got the franchise for handing it out. More often than not, those people wouldn’t know truth if it socked them upside the head.