Report Inappropriate Comments

It is inevitable that more sensational stories will attract more readers. However, to dismiss those sensational stories as "misinformation" goes to the difficulty in making a judgement about truth versus fiction in reporting, or on relying on sites, such as Facebook, to police themselves. As highlighted by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Richard Kluger, in his 2016 book, "Indelible Ink: The Trials of John Peter Zenger and the Birth of America's Free Press", Zenger could easily have been accused of publishing misinformation, in that exaggeration and innuendo played a role in his reporting. So, too, could Jay M. Near, whose prosecution by the state of Minnesota and successful appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court established the press freedom we now accept as our right.

However, as Chief Justice and legendary jurist Charles Evans Hughes wrote in his decision overturning the Minnesota "public nuisance" gag law, "...the fact that liberty of press may be abused does not make any less necessary the immunity of the press from prior restraint ... a more serious evil would result if officials could determine which stories can be published ..." The same could be said for any of today's purveyors of "misinformation". The last person to determine the truth of an accusation is the person with a vested interest in declaring its falsity.