What are the facts?

More and more recently I've come to the conclusion that being a "journalist" in this day and age means you're simply a shill for Big Business.

I chuckle every time I hear the term "liberal bias" used by a G.O.P. shill (GOP=Greed Oil Power). Considering that the power of the press (and airwaves) is controlled by huge corporations these days, you can tell they're either self-deluded or (more likely) lying through their teeth. There's no such thing. Conservative bias is what we've got.

Remember, the press and the TV companies are there to sell papers and advertising. The heck with publishing "the facts". It's about headlines and sales and volume...not truth and information and quality.

I started feeling this way a long time ago when I read reviews and comparisons of products produced by a company I worked for. The reviews were almost ALWAY slap-dash, containing many outright errors. They often weren't complete as well. And when the product was compared to others, I found that the comparisons were faulty as well. Little or no fact checking was done.

I've seen the same thing about other issues that I know something about. So I can only conclude that everything written by a journalist is B.S. Probably because they are in such a hurry to get the facts out. Years ago I wrote a monthly column and product reviews for a nationally published computer magazine. Review and article deadlines were so short (and the editors so incompetent) and pay levels so ludicrous that it simply was impossible to do a good job. Plus I had editors who would "edit" facts out of my articles and make me look like an idiot.

So don't believe what you read in the paper or see on T.V. Instead, as Robert A. Heinlein said: "What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the FACTS? Shun wishful tinking, ignore divine revelation, forget "what the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts."

Don't make the mistake in believing that because you heard it on the news or read it in the paper or on the 'Net that it's true or complete (just ask Pierre Sallinger!)

Here's a couple of items I've run across recently that bear on this issue:

Ex-Watergate writer laments 'idiot culture'

Why the media says the space plan costs a trillion dollars

Thank goodness for the Web and Google and such search engines. At least we can much more quickly seek out "the facts". Just never believe you have them all!

Keep an open mind out there!