The Editor Speaks: May, wanted, could, facts
Of those four words which one is the one to be believed?
It would appear to be a very easy question to answer but is it?
When was the last time you read or heard a media report that included the word ‘facts’?
How many times over the past month have you heard a media report that included the words ‘may’, ‘wanted’, ‘could’?
Over the past few days there has been, massacres, murders, natural disasters, world leaders meeting together and what has been the number one headline that has been blazed across our media report for the past three days?
Trump WANTED Mueller fired.
And the hard FACTS – there aren’t any.
The media trying to tell us the US tax cuts that had been passed COULD actually mean the middle class paying more. We now have the FACTS – it hasn’t.
We have published a story today headlined “A map of fitness tracker data MAY have compromised top secret US military bases around the world”.
Some of us old readers MAY remember a US TV programme called “Dragnet” where the detective, Joe Friday, would frequently ask a woman, “All we want are the facts, ma’am”. The FACTS.
However, in a spoof on “Dragnet” the phrase got changed.
Satirist Stan Freberg spoofed it on a 1953 record titled “St. George and the Dragonet.” This is what was said:
Little Blue Riding Hood: Why Grandma, what big ears you’ve got!
Sgt. Wednesday: All the better to get the facts. I just want to get the facts, ma’am.
And from that moment on nearly everyone believed the Freberg phrase was the one used in the actual “Dragnet” programme.
And that is NOT what Joe Friday MAY have said, WANTED to say, COULD have said, and that is a FACT!