You're Entitled to Your Own Opinion

. . . but not to your own facts. A neat quotation from former NY Senator Daniel Patrick Monihan I recently learned from this New York Times piece.The piece reports good news, a ripening trend away from the asinine, insane journalistic practice that demands equal time for both sides of the story, no matter the established truth on one side. The article refers to this as "false balance." Take for example, the so-called debate over the "theory" of evolution and creationism, under-girded by "creation science," of course. And then there is global warming, a fact accepted by an overwhelming majority of scientists, and yet our lamestream media sometimes portrays it, this fact of the warming of the globe, as something that is in dispute on scientific grounds.

"Recently, there’s been pressure to be more aggressive on fact-checking and truth-squading,” said Richard Stevenson, The Times’s political editor. “It’s one of the most positive trends in journalism that I can remember.”

It’s all a part of a movement — brought about, in part, by a more demanding public, fueled by media critics, bloggers and denizens of the social media world — to present the truth, not just conflicting arguments leading to confusion.

This can only be a good thing. The whole article is worth reading.