In the news we will have two experts debate if Cheney is a robot.
Back in the 80s their was such a thing as “Journalist Responsibility” basically reporters had a ethical obligation to check the facts of the story. So if they were interviewing someone who was saying things that were totally untrue it was their responsibility to call them out on it. So in the above story they would call Cheney's doctor who would confirm that he is not in fact a robot.
This was replaced by having two people take opposing views, and leave the fact checking out of it. The problem with this is the person that is pulling things out of their ass has a huge advantage over the one who wants to carefully state the correct facts. So the guy saying Cheney was a robot could blast out lies while the guy arguing that Cheney was in fact human would have to remember the doc's name, the charts and so on.
Here’s an idea for the new style of news, have a news analyst (I know they have them but they could actually use them). News programs could have someone watch the show and then at the end correct the totally untrue statements. So when Betsy McCaughey was on all the news shows last year talking about how the Healthcare law provided for liberal controlled time-machines and death panels the news analyst could come on at the end and mention the fact that she seems to have made those things up.
I know that in this day and age the idea of putting facts in news programs is radical, but hey it just might catch on.
By Darrell B. Nelson author of Invasive Thoughts
