The blurring of opinion and fact

I don’t particularly like opinionated people.  However, opinionated people are a fact of life and there is nothing I can do about them or their opinions. Where I draw the line though is when they put forward their opinions as facts. It is an all-too frequent trait with these people and deeply disturbing in that they often present it with implicit superiority suggesting they know something we don’t or that their opinion/fact is akin to a divine revelation.
There is a difference between opinion and fact.  That “Bishop” Tamaki is extracting money from vulnerable and naïve people is an opinion; that he is extracting money is a fact.
The blurring between opinion and fact came into sharp relief this week when I read an article in Stuff by Glenn McConnell. In the article McConnell takes to task a National member of parliament for purportedly questioning climate change. That member of parliament is, in McConnell’s opinion, not allowed to do that and is making his party look “clownish” and should leave Parliament at the next election.
That is McConnell’s opinion. Some will disagree with it. Some will also disagree with his assertions, presented as facts, that: “climate change is the biggest issue facing agriculture, and the biggest challenge facing the world,” and “the overwhelming consensus is that [climate change] will happen.”
McConnell may be right. I don’t know. But nor does McConnell.  In his article, he presents no evidence for the overwhelming consensus he refers to. That evidence may exist, but equally there is evidence that climate change, if it exists at all, is a natural and cyclical event. In other words, there are two sides to the argument. That is a fact. Yet McConnell presents his side of the argument as correct and climate change as a fact. It is not, it is an opinion and whilst it may be shared by many it is still an opinion.
What concerns me most about this article though is that McConnell’s so-called facts are shared by his publisher, again with vague reference to some unspecified supporting evidence. At the end of McConnell’s article, Stuff makes this astonishing statement:
“Stuff accepts the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and caused by human activity. We welcome robust debate about the appropriate response to climate change, but do not intend to provide a venue for denialism or hoax advocacy.”
Really? So Stuff will welcome robust debate on the issue but only one part of it (response) and only from the side it is supporting. I find that incredible from a media organisation. I don’t deny their right to have an opinion and to exhibit it, but to shut out anybody that disagrees with that opinion is simply wrong.
We are not talking about hate-speech here, for goodness sake. We are talking about a contentious subject that needs our media to get on board and present us with as much information as is available—from both sides—so we can, if we wish, form an informed opinion.
Above all, we cannot, I suggest, have media that present opinion as fact. That’s just wrong.
That’s my opinion, anyway.