Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

To be frank here, anything that you read in the paper is opinion 90% of the time. Hell, even flyers can be an opinion piece when the numbers aren't correct (just happed to me at Shoppers, luckily the cashier honoured the flyer).

Quite often though, pieces that are written can only have an opinion, and quite often they have a slant. Quite often that slant leans towards the pulse of the community. Or sometimes it does the reverse, depending how the writer wants things to go. Either way, if you have people talking about it, for example, D'Amato's work, then you have done your job, even if you disagree with it.

That said, just because we don't agree with an opinion doesn't mean it shouldn't be published, even if the opinion isn't popular.

Dan: what does PST mean?

Being able to identify and differentiate between facts/data, personal opinion, and slant/characterization is a woefully deficient skill in society at large (that's an opinion of course, although someone may have some data to quantify it).

As for D'Amato, you're not wrong, her job is to help sell papers...but I find that unsatisfying...in an idealized world her job should be to inform and enlighten, and I don't feel she does that terribly reliably.

As for what opinions should be published, again, the reality is the job is to sell papers, which I don't like. But if we speak in an idealized situation, yes, whether an opinion is popular, or controversial shouldn't govern whether it is published, I believe what should govern if an opinion is published is whether is is backed up by data and reason (i.e., rational and fair) and whether it is negative or positive influence on the community.

Publishing racist opinions is clearly harmful, and generally not backed up by any real science (plenty of bad faith false science is used to back up racism mind you), that kind of thing shouldn't be published, I don't care if people agree or disagree.  Her article on the COVID bike lanes was clearly opinion, and while I disagreed with it, my biggest objection to her was the mischaracterization of the supporters of the bike lanes as the "cycling lobby". I believe doing so was clearly harmful to the community because it dismisses and minimizes the voices of people in the community.

Which brings me to PST....which is simply Peter Shawn Taylors' initials. Frankly, he goes beyond slant and opinion and straight into the bald faced lie category.