Fact checking

It's difficult to either read the news or listen to the various presenters on TV. The media no longer fulfills the function of the free press. Criticizing the press is not the same as suppressing the press. They profess themselves as an elite college of cardinals; they are not the dispassionate arbiters of truth and fact. Pretending that they are is absolutely ridiculous. It is the media's circular re-enforcement of its own importance. The media is a guild, very adversarial to the public. The numbers and rationale in this supposed article is not about facts, but about shaming, and I do not agree with their interpretation of so-called facts here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-08/nbc-reporter-fact-checks-trumps-job-creation-claims-and-destroys-you-process

This so-called fact checking is coming from an agency, NBC, caught colluding with the Democratic party especially with the Clinton political machine, under a cloud of unethical behavior.

So, now, a whole new genre of journalism is to be a "fact checker" rather than an arbiter of literal fact. In these fake news columns they are not checking your facts, but simply disagreeing with your version of the truth. Isn't that called an editorial opinion? This article takes the cake http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/feb/18/fact-checking-president-donald-trumps-florida-rall/ as it completely misinterprets the quote from Thomas Jefferson that POTUS quoted quite accurately at a rally in Florida. The wording of the article actually doesn't argue that Trump misquoted Jefferson referring to the press, but slams him for not citing the entire quote, which in my mind, is more damning of the press.

"It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of it's benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. the real extent of this state of misinformation is know only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day." Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Norvell, 14 June 1807

The President did not take Jefferson out of context at all. There should be a law requiring news people to caveat their statements with a warning similar to those seen on cigarette packages: Warning-- the opinions presented in this show/report do not represent the truth and should be treated as illegitimate.

Further, "the basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter, but I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." Extracted from a letter to Edward Carrington, 16 January 1787, which shows that respect for the press is not a permanent feature in our midst. Because Jefferson's opinion clearly changed whilst President. The press must earn respect everyday. But it also lends credence to the adage that the views one holds at the end of life have greater weight that those we held at the beginning.