James Robert Kelley

In a previous post about the media failing to keep up with real-time news and introducing errors in their reporting, I suggested that the media stop trying and just wait long enough to be able to reflect on the news.

Here is another possible option: if the media insist on real-time reporting, instead of letting people look at commonly available real-time stats for themselves, they could introduce “IF THEN Reporting.”

The idea behind IF THEN Reporting is to make use of common web development techniques to modify their stories on the fly.  They could write their articles in the following manner:

echo “It was a “;

If(DOW.today < DOW.yesterday) {

     echo “bad”;

} else {

     echo “good”;

}

echo “ day in trading.”;

This would not add any more truth to their reporting, but at least it would always be reflective of the current state of affairs.

NOTE: I’m being sarcastic, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the media doing this in the future.