This article originally written in fall 2017. It has been revised and updated with current information.

These days the truth is in short supply. What is truth?

Is it those mundane facts of consequences that are embedded in law, such as you must license your vehicle or face financial consequences; if you perpetrate a financial crime against society, you will be punished according to the regimen defined by the law of the land.

Is it maths? Where a finance outcome can be proved by a series of computations, that is two plus two equals four and never some other number, or that investing $100 will earn you $2 a year if 2 per cent is the interest rate.

Is it truth about your own beliefs that you hold sacrosanct? What happens if your truth is completely the opposite of another?

Is truth the definitive premise of a personal moral code?

Is truth why those individuals who possess (and practice) an ethical code of conduct are more highly respected?

Why does telling and revealing the truth often compound the hurt of both the teller and the receiver?

Does being truthful create greater equality in the community?

Is truth just as absolute when pragmatically compromised to suit the individual?

Is truth equal to trust?

And that, in order to make judgments of any kind, particularly financial, we need to trust that we have been told, and sold, information that is true.

Truth sets the standards of human interaction, reinforced by laws and justice.

Free, open democratic societies, ours included, enshrine a constitution that protects the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, conscience, expression, assembly, discrimination, protection of the law and so on.

Can a free society function without standards of truth that are the cornerstone of democracy?

The question that begs to be asked is – doesn't everyone welcome knowing the truth? It is statistically proven with financial facts that operating in the transparent ethical light of day is extraordinarily financially successful for an economy.

And how do we tell and know what is true?

Simple really, we can just feel that truism – or deception – in our bones, our very being, thanks to our millions of years of embedded survival instincts.

What does not feel right is most often not right.

We can take it upon ourselves to do our own independent research on persons, platitudes, and promises to obtain the real truthful facts. Vigilance, cynicism, questioning facts, big-picture independent thinking, and understanding financial literacy concepts are all aids to utilise in arriving at knowing financial truths. There is ample opportunity and endless real-time data given the access to the internet’s powerful search engines.

We can even consider relying upon our instincts, and our intuition, but can also be set back by more than 175 cognitive biases embedded in our behavioural economics. (https://thedecisionlab.com/biases)

Journalists are providers of the truth: they act as filters for our biases assisting us in determining the truth of a matter. They don't action the truth, they simply report the facts – the truth of any information about, and in support of a free society.

Professional journalists adhere to a code of ethical principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability – as these apply to the acquisition of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public.

What is it about the truth that is so powerful, so threatening, so downright destabilising for those who do not embrace a moral code?

Isn't it true that those who do not honour the truth, are putting their own self-interests above everyone else's? From minimal evasions of the truth to obfuscation, half-truths, repudiation, denial, selective prejudicial information to flagrant violations of society's moral code, such individuals (and related entities) will do everything in their power to suppress the telling of the “truth of the matter”.

Why?

Because anyone: among them whistle-blowers, auditors, accountants, attorneys, law enforcement, clergy, and particularly journalists who reveal the truth of financial, political and related crimes against the community can bring the malfeasance of the perpetrators involved to the court of public opinion – and the law – for judgment in a free, open society.

The price that these courageous individuals pay (and have paid) for following their conscience, telling the truth, is almost beyond comprehension. More than just in truth reporting, more than 2,100 retaliation murders of journalists since 1992, and hundreds more imprisoned to date, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Supporting truth-telling to justice is almost sacrosanct to life itself.

The press can be highly unpopular, but without these necessary truths, checks and balances, a country and its people will eventually face the erosion of civil liberties and fundamental personal freedoms.

Individual rights and choices that have always been taken for granted are under increased scrutiny with the overwhelming proliferation of high-tech spyware, surveillance capitalism, and the analyses of collections of mass psychological profiles to subliminally or transparently influence consumer preferences, political choices, and myriad other digital data inferences, whether recognised or not.

Free, open democratic societies, ours included, enshrine a constitution that protects these fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, conscience, expression, assembly, discrimination, protection of the law and so much more.

Can a free society even function economically without standards of truth that are the cornerstone of democracy?

And who pays? Ordinary people, the majority who see good, want the truth, believe in public accountability, conduct themselves as honest citizens.

In the end, suppression, distortion, and obfuscation of the truth is always about power, control and money.

As Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, said: “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

Truth can never be suppressed for ever.

Sometimes, there is justice. I wrote in October 2017 about Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s leading investigative journalist, a mother, spouse, just an ethical professional doing her job, who was murdered when a bomb exploded under her car in her home country. Last week, five years later, two men were convicted and sentenced to 40 years each for their role as hitmen in her assassination.

• Martha Harris Myron is a native Bermuda islander with US connections. Author of Bermuda’s First Financial Literacy Primer – the Dawn of New Beginnings and Bermuda – Bermy Island Finance Blog www.marthamyron.com Contact: martha.myron@gmail.com