Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Liar Liar

A few years ago my mother treated us to a cruise to Alaska! Yes it was awesome, but that's not what I want to talk about. One of the places we stopped at was Skagway, and in Skagway, the place to go is called "Liarsville."

Liarsville got it's name in an interesting way. During the Alaskan gold rush, every news outlet, big or small, wanted to cover the story. So they all sent reporters to Alaska to go cover things first hand. However, it was not very easy to trek all the way out on the trail and try to find the prospectors to get their stories, so the newsmen set up a camp near Skagway and made up stories about the gold rush for their papers to print. Hence the name "Liarsville."

My point is that "fake news' is not a new phenomena. And if you staunchly support the media, realize that you are merely supporting a point of view, not the truth. Choose your sources wisely, and even then don't believe all you read.

Look at things like the coverage of the Mosque attack in Canada, or Trump's immigration freeze, and you will look long and hard before you find any "fact" that is in fact, a fact. We have a thousand news sources, most of which have set up camp at their computer to make up stories.

That's not to say that everyone's a liar, or that there is no truth or that you cannot know the truth. But you are responsible for digging through the dreck if you want to know the truth.

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