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That's because you don't understand what "opinions" are (at least, in this context). News stories should be brief and answer "5W" questions (who, what, when, w
by r3bl 7y ago
That's because you don't understand what "opinions" are (at least, in this context).
News stories should be brief and answer "5W" questions (who, what, when, where, why). As such, they're supposed to be based on the facts alone, and others should draw their own conclusions from them.
Opinions, on the other hand, are used to put the news stories into context. Journalists are supposed to have more background to the stories than you could learn from just reading the facts (since they're the ones that wrote them). That background can be used to help you interpret those facts.
In this case, an incident happened. BBC put out an opinion piece to tell you why you should care about that incident before they had enough facts to answer all five of those questions. A news story links to that opinion so that they could help you with placing those answers into context.
- chrisseaton 7y agoBottom line for me is - I know the BBC have already made up their mind that this is an attack on press freedoms rather than a legitimate investigation, so I’m now not going to be holding my breath for them to report any developments that are contrary to that view. That’s why it’s a shame they choose to do this.
- r3bl 7y ago"I came up with this strawman that people close to the situation didn't think of (probably because it isn't even close to being true), so I'm going to hold on my own strawman argument even though I have absolutely nothing to base it on." There, fixed that for you. Could it be that you're misinterpreting facts? No, it must be that those who have access to first- and second-hand accounts that are wrong. Not you, a person pulling out a hypothesis based off of less info nor any contact with any of the parties in the story.
- chrisseaton 7y agoYou’re just being snide and snarky now. I don’t know why people think it’s extreme to say that I don’t want my public broadcaster quoting their own opinions in the news reports. The article would have been complete without a quote from themselves, or could have used a quote from someone else qualified. Really easy solutions.
- r3bl 7y agoThere's no such thing as unbiased journalism.
- chrisseaton 7y agoI agree - but people can try. Like not quoting yourself.