Just the Facts!

In today's world with the media capabilities we have you can watch all sorts of news programs, from America and from other countries, the BBC for example.  You can also see how they report things based on clips you can find on other sites.

When I use the word news, I don't mean talking head commentary.  That is simple like the editorial pages or the op-ed pages of a newspaper.  It may or may not include some factual content but it isn't reporting the news.

A news report includes the five w's (Who What Where When and Why) properly sourced and documented.  Once speculation enters the picture you have commentary and perhaps propaganda.

We live in an age where many people don't start with the news, they start with the commentary.  If you take an event, like the mass shooting in Las Vegas, we know who did it, what they did, where they did it and when they did it.  We may not fully understand why they did it.  We also know hoW they did it (the sixth W).  This is the factual reporting.

You can look at this and form an opinion about any number of things including the wide availability of assault weapons, but that is opinion, not news.

So many people now think that they get news from talking heads who represent a particular point of view and don't pretend otherwise.  This has led many of those people to claim that factual reporting is biased.

It may speak to our educational system or the amount of drugs being consumed, but facts are facts.

The fact that someone said something stupid on video tape is undeniable, but they ignore the evidence and blame the reporting on bias.

Understand factual based reality is important.  Accepting alternate reality is a form of insanity.

If you don't think the moon landing happened, you have to understand that we have a lot of evidence that it did.  If you think you can just say you don't believe it because they could have faked things, that is perhaps the basis of a short story or a book, it just isn't reality.

Imagination is a wonderful thing properly applied.

Hallucination, not so much, although some great works of art may have benefitted.