Re: [tlug] Jumping to Conclusions

["Keith Bawden" <keith@example.com>]

> Interestingly, at their page with the PR piece entitled: "Why the Deal
> Would be Good  For You", there is a link to another article (posted as
> an opinion), entitled: "Microsoft and Yahoo: A Really Bad Idea".  So
> we get "Why the Deal Would be Good For You" posted as news, and
> "Microsoft and Yahoo: A Really Bad Idea" posted as an opinion.  They
> are both opinions!  Where is the impartial analysis?

All news is pretty much subjective, at least to some extent. Someone
chose to report it in the first place. At least in this instance they
linked  to a conflicting article.

Often such articles are initiated by a corporate press release. I
would suspect that some journos are lazy enough to simply paraphrase a
press release without verifying "the facts".

The first sentence of this wikipedia article nails it on the head. "A
news release is ... for the purpose of announcing something claimed as
having news value"[1].

Regards, Keith
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_release