Fact checking the Jena Six

For Cody Kittle's column and Jesse X. Yang's letter about the Jena Six, the Forum desk spent close to two hours trying to figure out the underlying facts of the case.

The Jena Six is inherently a controversial issue, and we tried to validate every fact of the case that the writers cited. This proved to be a momentously difficult task. Different details of the case are flung across the far corners of the internet – both on reliable sources such as the Washington Post and on obviously slanted activist Web sites. There is no single place where every facet of the situation can be located, and it seemed almost every bit of evidence was directly contradicted somewhere else.

Regardless of one's opinion about the Jena Six, the only clear truth arising from the story is that the whole truth will probably never be known. Does that mean we should not care about and not debate complex issues such as this? No. It just reinforces the need to do the best one can to understand and foster intelligent debate instead of mere hearsay and rumor-mongering.