Information? We’re swimming in the useless bits.

Evening all.
Firstly, I am mega sorry for being so late with this blog today. I’ve been thinking about the way in which we are provided with so much information sometimes on the news- not necessarily corresponding, nearly always conflicting, that it is hard to even make out what you’ve actually just been told.
One example from this week was that the economy is apparently growing- and yet record numbers are turning to food banks. We hear that HS2 will benefit huge swathes of people and then that a different poll- looking at a completely different set of what if criteria thinks several places might not benefit as much- which isn’t the same as a loss, is it.
The very same mis-information with fracking. How many people have heard the companies themselves admitting that it will make little to no difference to our gas prices (the rest of the world already being so far ‘ahead’ of us)- but on the same report that these things aren’t mentioned on, we hear how it could potentially bring a boom to industry and energy security.
We’re all pretty fed up of the bull, aren’t we.  Isn’t it time people were treated as decent, thinking beings and given a decent outlet- I dunno, something like “The News”, on which to see the facts presented, spin free, in bare form and then talked through. This, I suspect is a pipe dream, but until then, we’ll just have to keep filtering through the heaps of partial fact they keep spooning us, in the hope at least then we can find an ounce of sense or reason behind the next scandalous decision (like the most hated disability minister in years being given a new job, enforcing the bedroom tax, for instance).  .  

You’re a better man than me if you make sense of it. Until next week then, here’s a poem.

Dear Controllers of Information.

Feed me all of the statistics
I want to see each little bit
I’ll make up my mind before it gets refined
I’m long past trusting BBC tricks.

I remember I learnt in my schooldays
How music is organised sound
How knowledge is power but vast reams of data
Need sorting for their meaning to be found.

So don’t tell us one side of the story
This is Britain, we’re not in a Cold War
Don’t we deserve to know, where the money did go
Why the rich pay less tax than the poor

Because projects might not come in on budget
But the pros can still outweigh the cons
Tell us, why should we back everything you put past us
After so many times, you’ve been wrong.

I propose then a shake up of stats feeds
A straight ban on biased bits of news
Present facts from all sides- if there’s nothing to hide
Then we’ll make up our own bloody views.

Thanks for reading,  S.