The Press

The Press sure got a way of framing how we read the news . Even the Canadian Press organization is not immune from the hyperbole.

This is a excerpt of a Canadian Press News Item this morning:

‘OTTAWA — The Canadian economy dipped in February, marking its first contraction since September, after the blistering pace it set to kick off the year.

Statistics Canada said Friday that real gross domestic product edged down 0.1 per cent in February compared with growth of 0.6 per cent in January.’

When  a growth of 0.6 per cent is blistering we really have a problem . And then edged down.

Of course, I meet people every day who relate something they read in a paper or news website and when I question and say that this sounds a little exaggerated etc they look at me with surprise exclaiming : ‘but I read it in the paper’ or its from such and such website, somehow implying that makes the story true and accurate.

Just recently I corrected ‘the press ‘ on a story ( I won’t release the name ) which was inaccurate and the excuses I received in response were laughable.

Of course, often if you do the objection in letters to the editor it may or may not get carried. You see they receive so many letters that even if it relates to accuracy the letter gets relegated to when it was received etc.

In going through my files of the 1980’s I found where I had shown a blatant falsehood in a newspaper article about me. I objected in writing . Oh, they carried the objection alright  but not in the front of the paper like the original , rather buried many pages later , a place where the size of the readership would be very , very small.