Investigating facts and reporting them clearly is a solved problem.
Do tell. What is a fact? Is it an assertion that is truthful? If something is not asserted is it still a fact? Is gravity a fact or an assertion without evidence? Was Ptolemy wrong or just complicated?
Who are these people who go to universities and study how to investigate facts and report them clearly? Are they the in journalism or normal schools? Are they philosophers? Are they physics majors?
How much of a fact is bound in the frame of reference or context in which it is asserted? Can two nominally opposed assertions both be true? Does that make them both facts? Can all facts be recorded someplace?
We can go down philosophical rabbit holes and end up in absurd places where we argue over the definition of "truth," but I was obviously making a statement within the context of our discussion about reporting the news and events of the day.
If it's something you're interested in, nothing's stopping you from taking a journalism class or two, and after doing so you'd probably look at certain media outlets differently.
In terms of reporting the news about establishing facts, where it domestic terrorists that stormed the building or protestors? What word are being used? Where it people spontaneously instigated by the speech made by Trump, or radicals who had organized the attack much earlier and who traveled to the demonstration. What is the narrative and story being told and why does one journalist chose one kind and the other a completely different one despite both using the same facts for it?
People sometimes say we live in a post-truth society. I would say that we live in a world where the narrative is more important than the truth, and part of the reason for that is that journalist are so well trained in creating narratives out of the crumbs of a few facts. I can even see the journalist students be given a handful of facts and asked to write a long article, each being graded on how well the narrative story end up.
Mr. Pilate once asked "What is truth?". Even though there are various definitions and approaches, I credit Pierce and pragmatists with the best one - truth is what we know at the end of inquiry/investigation. So, the "end of inquiry" being flexible, the truth can change as well, and I think, last decade and especially last year can attest to that. Something reported as a fact today - may not be a fact once we get more information in.
Do tell. What is a fact? Is it an assertion that is truthful? If something is not asserted is it still a fact? Is gravity a fact or an assertion without evidence? Was Ptolemy wrong or just complicated?
Who are these people who go to universities and study how to investigate facts and report them clearly? Are they the in journalism or normal schools? Are they philosophers? Are they physics majors?
How much of a fact is bound in the frame of reference or context in which it is asserted? Can two nominally opposed assertions both be true? Does that make them both facts? Can all facts be recorded someplace?