You're confusing reporting with commentary. We do both at SAI. Sometimes, commentary and speculation before reporting, as in this case. Sometimes the other way around. But fun rant.
i don't think I'm confusing them, I think I'm stating that I do not care for news organizations ranting instead of reporting.
It's your call as a business, of course, but my perspective as a "consumer" is that every Tom, Dick, and Jane has a blog. They all can and do rant away with abandon and "professional" journalists have very little edge over bloggers in wit. It's true that any one journalist might be consistently funnier than any one blogger, but when sites like reddit, HN, and Digg filter the wheat from the chaff, bloggers in aggregate are at least as funny and usually funnier than "professionals."
What I expect from professionals that I don't expect from bloggers is professionalism. I don't think a "fun rant" is professional in tone or substance. So I don't like it.
Fact-checked for journalists consists of verifying that someone said something, unless what they actually said isn't consistent with the narrative. At that point, journalistic judgement comes into play. Do you attribute the quote that you want to an unknown source or simply go with it?
It's your call as a business, of course, but my perspective as a "consumer" is that every Tom, Dick, and Jane has a blog. They all can and do rant away with abandon and "professional" journalists have very little edge over bloggers in wit. It's true that any one journalist might be consistently funnier than any one blogger, but when sites like reddit, HN, and Digg filter the wheat from the chaff, bloggers in aggregate are at least as funny and usually funnier than "professionals."
What I expect from professionals that I don't expect from bloggers is professionalism. I don't think a "fun rant" is professional in tone or substance. So I don't like it.
JM2C.