Garuda.Chanti said: »
Asura.Saevel said: »
Anytime the following words are used in a charge "news" article, the entire thing should be taken with a giant grain of salt. "May, might, could, should, possibly, theoretically" and so forth, basically anything that doesn't have a quantified definite meaning.
Look at articles about mass shooters. The shooter can be caught on the scene, with literally a smoking gun, but until he has been tried and convicted the press must use "alleged".
Only if they are Muslim and their last name isn't Kavanaugh.
The press doesn't have to do they, this is a fairly recent standard that came about with the concept of "Entertainment News". It's not enough for them to just present the facts, they need to feed you their opinion along with the opinion the viewers are supposed to have.
Yes the presence of those unquantifiable words invalidates anything they were referring to because by definition they can't be falsified. We "could" do many things, doesn't make the action of those things true.
As for the press, they use those unquantifable words so they can't be held accountable for lying via defamation lawsuit. As long as they keep their statements vague and about possibilities instead of certainties, they can say whatever they want without fear of libel. The moment they say something is certain, and it's proven to be untrue, they open themselves up to all sorts of bad stuff. Speaking only the truth isn't exciting and doesn't lead the viewers to the *correct* opinion, so the art is to make uncertain stuff sound certain.
