OK, so we are right back to what I stated.  It is only reputible if you agree with the story.  If you disagree with it, it is not reputible.


I'll say it again.  One can not DISAGREE or AGREE with facts, but one can agree or disagree with the way the facts are INTERPRETED.  Part of both journalism and History/Social Science disiplines is the SELECTION of facts and their arrangments.  For example, a historian discovered that boarding houses where pre Civil War Congressmen lived in Washington bought only salted meats, and starchy foods.  A long term diet based on these foods could easilly lead to chronic constipation (Congress is still full of it), and this could go a long way to explain why compromise was so difficult - the members were all out of sorts, irritable, uncomfortable, and testy (not to mention flatulant).  So from facts we move to surmise and to conclusion.  But what if the boarding houses had summer gardens and put up fruits and veggies?  This fact would not appear in their ledgers and would force an alteration of the interpretation.  Did the Bush White House "cherry pick" the intelligence on Iraq to get to the interpretation and conclusion it wanted?  Does NEWSMAX "cherry pick" the facts to make its editorial point?  Does Fox, or MSNBC, or CNN, or all of them? 

I think that when they do, and I think they all do, and we agree with the slant, or spin if you like, we accept their "analysis", and when we disagree we seek out additional facts to refute that slant or spin.  Thats just the way the world works.