3 ms·

Well shouldn't a newspaper standby their reporting?

• rahimnathwani 9y ago
  When a newspaper prints '{statement}, according to {source}' there's a reason: they don't independently verify those facts. They're printing it in the hope that it's useful, and giving you their source as a cop out or, if you're being charitable, so that you can decide whether you want to believe it or not. The statement "In 2012, USPS was paid only 94 cents on average for each piece of Chinese ePacket mail, according to a February report from the Postal Service’s inspector general’s office." is probably 100% accurate, in the same sense that "Rahim is the best dad ever, according to his son" is true, could be 100% accurate. You could stand by either statement. And both could be accurate. But it doesn't mean they're not misleading (in that the fact being discussed might not be true). If you look for it, you'll see similar patterns scattered all over newspapers. One of the most common examples: '{company} reported 4th quarter earnings of {amount}'. There's a reason they don't simply say ''{company} earned {amount} in Q4'.