No, they are not one and the same. They're orders of magnitude different. And to equate the two is to completely devalue the portion of truth that is contained

No, they are not one and the same. They're orders of magnitude different. And to equate the two is to completely devalue the portion of truth that is contained in biased but fact-based journalism (as opposed to pure fabrication). It's an information problem, and something that contains 25% information isn't the same as something that contains 0% information. It's possible to reliably extract signal out of the former, while no amount of transformations and averaging make that possible with the later. And furthermore, as I said before, one of the primary theories on the effective use of the later is to use it to discredit the former, which is exactly what you're suggesting. > You and I may believe the world is round, but... Speak for yourself. I've flown to Tokyo and can calculate an approximate curvature of the Earth by the flight characteristics.