the documentary age

"When we say a thing or an event is real, never mind how suspect it sounds, we honor it. But when a thing is made up -- regardless of how true and just it seems -- we turn up our noses. That's the age we live in. The documentary age. As if we can never, never get enough facts. We put on the television set and what we hear is the life cycles of birds. The replaying of wars. Interviews with mass murderers. And the newspapers know nothing else.
--Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries