Getting The Whole Story
If you want to get in an argument with a journalist just tell them that every story, even straight news, has a point of view. Boy, do they get indignant. It’s just like you said that the emperor has no clothes. I’m sorry, but it is still true.
That said, there are at least 2 places you can get the all the information on a story and make up your own mind; the print editions of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. You will note that I did not say the online editions. Sometimes long stories in online editions of the print media are shortened. I think they do it because they think that the attention span of online readers is shorter than those who read print. I think, they are probably right.
Why do I think that every story, even straight news, has a point of view? Stories are written with the facts that the writer thinks are the most important at the beginning followed by the next most important and ending with the least important in the judgement of the writer. The WSJ and the NYT run the entire stories without regard to their length. Other papers tend to shorten stories by cutting off the end, the location of the least important facts, in opinion of the writer.
In the WSJ or the NYT (I’m sure there are others) if you read an article from back to front you get a decidedly different point of view then if you read it front to back. The best part is that you tend to get the entire story and can make up your own mind about what are the most important elements of the story.
Aside: I got into the habit of reading stories back to front from my mother who was left handed. I’m right handed. My mother would open magazines at the back and page forward. In that way you see the end of articles before you see the beginning. If that is your habit you start to read the end before you get to the beginning and you get an entirely different perspective on the world.
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POSTED IN: Boomer Talk
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