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oneplane

Seems like good journalistic news would write:

* Pentagon said Iraq has a stockpile of WMD

* White house reports Japanese-American citizens will be rounded up.

* You don't need to wear a mask, so don't go buying them up, surgeon general said in press release.

* Collage is a wise investment, according to College administrators.

* You should fear $those_people because they will kill you, Senate discussed last night.

* Congress argues: Some civil rights are outdated and you don't need them anymore.

It's not news if it's opinion. It's news if it's a writeup of things that happen.

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Surprisingly, about the first point at least, the reporting I remember is exactly that : "Pentagon says Irak has WMD, but the rest of the world is not convinced."

Now, it might help that I'm French :P

France, the one country that challenged US intelligence because their own intelligence contradicted the CIA and NSA reports. Absolute studs.

And then we renamed French fries to freedom fries.

In the Netherlands no-one of any importance sincerely believed US intelligence, because nobody trusted Bush. But the thinking here was "Well, it's the US and they have us by the balls. The diplomatic thing is to say we understand their stance on Irak."

Please add Germany to that list:

[Excuse me I’m not convinced](https://youtu.be/_k_QbpFl7RM)

That sentence is idiomatic now for many people I know. (WTF is wrong with my markdown here?)

Hacker news doesn't support markdown. https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc

And yet I remember the weasel covers ;) ooooh, not-so-simpler times....

This is how almost all news is presented, unfortunately many people don't seem to understand this - i.e. if it's in quotes it's not the editorial opinion of the newspaper! (Otherwise the BBC would be pro-left pro-right etc.)

Exposure can lead to the inference that something is true. So if you are wanting to be careful, you need to consider that there may be no effective difference in publishing "Iraq has WMDs" and "the Pentagon says Iraq has WMDs."

That's also something we should teach our kids.

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