Gazette, do more fact checking on opinions

Gazette, fact check opinions it prints

The Gazette could do more to lower the volume of contentious speech.

The Internet, now the major news source for many, has limitations. When accurate news is shared - great! When misinformation is shared, fact and fiction are spread further and faster than gossip ever could. The left and right get their talking points, but without enough common ground to get them in the same room.

Before the Internet existed, newspapers fulfilled that role. News was supposed to be accurate. Only editorials and letters to the editor contained opinions.

Many letters also include “facts” that its author believes are true. The late N.Y. Sen. Daniel Moynihan once said, “Senator, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts!”

What the public needs is not more opinions, but a referee to sort out what is fact and what is opinion. The Gazette could be that “honest broker,” or fact checker, with only a brief editor's comment when appropriate.

Currently, The Gazette prints readers' letters without comment. I would like to see The Gazette attempt to exercise its editorial responsibility to make writers responsible for factual accuracy. When things are misrepresented, an editor's comment should say so. Not trying is an admission that even The Gazette is incapable of being “the big person” in the room.

Accuracy will allow more people to return to a civil center to decide what is best for our country, not the side making the most noise.

Robert B. Hamill

Cedar Rapids