Connecting The Dots: Speculation, Wishful Thinking, Or Accurate Interpretation?

This year, we have witnessed, nearly every day, some sort of report/ reports, questioning particular behaviors, actions, motivations, influences, and/ or reasons, certain elected officials, have done something! If you review almost any of these reports, from a variety of different media, you might believe you are reading about totally different events. For example, here, in New York, I read four newspapers, daily. The NY Post often emphasizes and/ or reports, far differently than, either Newsday, the NY Times, or, even, The Wall Street Journal (although the Journal and Post, share the same ownership). How can someone know, what's actually going on, and differentiate between speculation, wishful thinking, or accurate interpretation?

1. Speculation: How is the connecting the dots, being done? Is it based on digging deeply, discovering additional facts, pursuing leads, etc, or is it mere speculation? How much does the specific media's position, conform to the political views and preferences of the editors, etc? How extreme is the connection? Is there only one situation, being cited, or are there, a variety of related circumstances? In a courtroom, unsupported speculation, is referred to as Circumstantial Evidence! How much effort is made, to discover additional facts, that bring more light, to the matter? Is this speculation, somewhat innocent, and based on a degree of journalistic laziness and/ or convenience, or on a particular political position?

2. Wishful thinking: Does the source of the information, follow the leads, and discover information, or, is it, based on wishful thinking, wish supports your desired perspective and view? Is the reporter delving deeply, or simply, trying to support a specific, preconceived notion, idea and/ or perspective? Is this reporting based on journalistic integrity, or irresponsible skewing of facts, to distort certain positions?

3. Accurate judgment: If a reporter follows the facts, without trying to interpret prematurely, and gathers enough information, to be able to develop a fair and accurate judgment, he or she, is the rare, principled political reporter! Rather than jump to conclusions, we should all carefully review the source of the information, examine the record, and whether, they have previously, let their personal, political philosophy, direct their reporting!

Beware when someone connects the dots! Examine the thoroughness, objectivity, fairness, and accuracy of their information - gathering procedure!

Richard has owned businesses, COO, CEO, Director of Development, consultant, professionally run events, worked on political campaigns, consulted to thousands, and conducted personal development seminars, for 4 decades. Rich has written three books and thousands of articles. Website: http://plan2lead.net and LIKE the Facebook page for common sense politics: http://facebook.com/commonsense4all