[devilmoon]

But from what I've been taught in school, news articles should always aim to state only the facts as they have happened without trying to draw conclusions, show only one side of the story or inject the bias of the reporter. As long as you have journalists and editors able to do their jobs, stating facts doesn't become an exercise in pushing your narrative as you describe but simple reporting of "what happened" or "what has been said". In your specific example, you would report only on the actual statistical figures released, without trying to inject probabilities or percentages which are pushing your analysis and view of the data.

News outlets are then free to print articles containing opinions, studies and conclusions, but this are called editorials and not news articles, and by definition they do carry the opinion of the writer and his/her innate bias on the matter. Even in this case, saying something false is different from interpreting the data or facts at hand. For example, you could write and publish an editorial examining the same statistics as before and come up with the conclusion that there might be a racial bias - some people might agree, some people might not, but it's still an opinion based on hard data and doesn't contain a lie. If you, however, started saying that it's all a plot orchestrated by the reptilians running society to make you think that there's a racial bias, that would indeed be a lie with no factual basis and should be punishable.

There are facets and sides to every story you tell, but reducing everything down to the point where you conflate news reporting, opinions and lies is, imho, stupid.

[matwood]

News is a lot like statistics. Just by which facts I show (and don't show), and how I show them I can push the reader to a certain conclusion. Even the wording matters. A great example is reporting on the stock market. "Market plunges 500 points!!", but the reality is that's ~1.8% and barely a blip.