Clinton fires her shot in biased news battle

Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do. That’s a true statement but it doesn’t add much clarity. That’s the problem the growing “news” industry has.

With relatively low cost and simple distribution methods, online news creation has become a temptation for many people who are far more interested in crafting a message than reporting news.

No matter how many groups join the fray, they always claim their side of the argument is underrepresented in the current political debate.

You need to look no further than the participants in the 2016 election to see how this works. Donald Trump has spent most of his time campaigning and now governing by attacking the press.

Even last week in Houston, he claimed that journalists wouldn’t brave hurricane conditions like some Coast Guard members did. The truth is that the only way the president knew about many things happening in Houston was because of media reports. Even his own EPA — led by Oklahoman Scott Pruitt — claimed an Associated Press writer reported on hazardous waste sites in the flooded area from “the comfort of Washington D.C.” The truth is the person in the EPA who released that attack and wouldn’t release their name was the only person hit by the stones they threw. That reporter had been to several of the sites that were accessible. Since the EPA still doesn’t have many regional directors in place, their personnel hadn’t. The EPA had seen some drone footage. The reporters did the real work and risked their life and health to do it.

In his time as a candidate and president, Trump has hired and fired Steve Bannon, the head of the far right Breitbart website. Trump also loves FOX and Friends and Sean Hannity and has trumpeted his support for the One America News Network and also his newly developed Trump News Network.

All of these networks have a side of the story to tell and border on propaganda when they don’t blatantly cross that line and become false reporting for the cause.

Thankfully, Hillary Clinton has an answer to help people find truth in an age where lies have become weaponized.

That’s not really true. She is also just a shill for another company claiming to produce news that recognizes its own bias on every page of the website.

Clinton proudly endorsed Verrit over the weekend because she finds it to be a great site for news. “I’m excited to sign up for @Verrit, a media platform for the 65.8 million! Will you join me and sign up too?” she tweeted.

Apparently her endorsement led to both an attack by online hackers and a significant increase in registrations for the “news” site. Verrit claims to be a fact-checking news site that helps people discover the truth by finding original sources.

However, the site is founded and run by a John Kerry and Hillary Clinton advisor and the site even tells readers that this is “News for the 65.8 million.” If you don’t get the reference, it is the number Clinton fans love to repeat because it is her November vote total that was about 3 million higher than Donald Trump’s.

I guess that is a solid consolation prize, but Georgia Tech’s offense outgained Tennessee Monday night but they still lost. Like a final on a football scoreboard, everything else is just a meaningless detail.

We have conservative news outlets claiming they exist because the media is liberal and liberal outlets starting up to fight against claims of fake news and alternative facts from the right.

I have been writing a lot of columns for a long time and I have never let my opinion change the way facts are reported. In fact, the editors who have worked for me will confirm that I welcome opposing views and even personal attacks on me that they won’t allow. I know what my opinion is and what it is worth.

I would never want to work at a newspaper that was designed to lean one direction or the other.

The news is the news. Opinions belong on the editorial page.

I wish more news organizations would seek that as their founding principle again and not seek to become the fire to fight the fire they fear from “the other side.”

News should be neutral.

As much as people love having their ears tickled by stories they agree with, I still think they expect and respect an unbiased retelling of facts.

Maybe I am wrong, but I would rather be wrong than play for one side or the other of the biased news battle. Everyone loses in that game.