Here is an exaggerated tale of why that isn't a good policy: A person you know slightly tells you that your business partner is having an affair with your wife and is cooking the books and robbing you blind. Fair enough? Just suppose that the rest of the story is that the guy was setting you up. You killed your business partner and then while you were in prison the tell all Good Samaritan marries your now ex-wife and you learn that your business partner was an innocent bystander. The guy who filled your ears with lies had an ulterior motive. You leaped to some erroneous conclusions and took action. Would you have acted differently if you knew the "reporter" was trying to trick you?
The fact that most high-school graduates don't challenge the logic of "we report; you decide" is a preposterous situation. The results could be just as bad as they were in the hypothetical story above. Who doesn't love being the butt of an old fashioned practical joke?
Doesn't Bill O'Reilly work for an organization that went to court and established that it has a legal right to tell lies in the guise of supplying facts for citizens to make informed judgments?
After hearing a stream of news reports about bad snowstorms causing all kinds of closures and disruptions of service for people living on the USA's East Coast, we were a bit disconcerted to hear news reports that during the same time frame new car sales were good and that new jobs were created. Has skepticism earned a place on the endangered species list?
On Friday March 6, 2015, the Getty and Armstrong radio show reported that the "hands up; don't shoot" meme was inaccurate and had not actually occurred.
Hemingway was boastful and may have exaggerated some of his accomplishments. His fans don't want to be burdened with the odious task of doing some precise fact checking to separate the hard facts from the legends. Brian Williams worked for a liberal news organization and is being punished severely. Bill O'Reilly is getting the rich kid pass from an indulgent father responseto what he has done. "Now run along and play!"
[Note from the photo editor. A montage image is the best we could do this week.]
Here is the quote of the week. When the woman combat photographer Dickey Chappelle complained about mosquitoes buzzing around her while taking pictures on Iwo Jima, a Marine corrected her misperception: "Those wasn't mosquitoes, ma'am, they was Japanese bullets."
Now the disk jockey will play "Who shot Liberty Valance," "Do not forsake me," and the theme from TV's "Gun Smoke." We have to go start our own urban legends. Have a "good night and good luck" type week.
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