WORLD According to Mark

So, as I look at various bits of news, I try very hard to find the honest to God facts behind the news articles, or videos, from which I derive my articles. In this case, I’ve been slowly starting to watch a gentleman on YouTube who watches what’s going on with shipping. At first, I thought he was just another person talking without facts, but then I started to note all the facts and the sources of the facts that he shares. He shares every bit of where he gets his information.

One of the places he gets a lot of information is from the US Government and its’ subsidiary branches. For instance, in one of his latest videos where he discusses the rising water levels in the Mississippi River and its tributaries, he went straight to the United States Geological Survey’s web site and used their verified and factual data to form part of what he was presenting to YouTube. He even was citing the major weather arm of the government, NOAA, which is also a very reliable source of straight and factual information.

Another gentleman has a YouTube channel, and he watches what is going on in China with the Yangtze River Dam, otherwise known as The Three Gorges Dam. For several of the last few years that dam has been a source of a lot of doomsday news citing its impending failure and the deaths of millions of downstream people. But thanks to information from the Chinese government, video from the dam’s site, and a few other sources that verified data, he was able to show what was actually happening and not create drama where none existed.

At a business seminar, a speaker once said, “In God we trust; all others must provide data.” I’ve done my best to use that as a guiding thought process, to help me be able to figure out fact from fiction. And when I write for the paper, now papers, I want to be able to share facts, and hopefully share facts that most of us aren’t aware of. So, I thought I would share some of what I look for while figuring out facts from fiction, and how you might be able to do the same. I hope this helps.

By Mark Tobola