The word that’s being tossed around like so much banter on an FM morning show, Accountable.

We must hold the press accountable. We must hold the new administration accountable. We must hold the city council accountable. Blah, blah, blah.

Whatever it is, our job as journalists is to simply tell the truth, as we experience it. That could mean different things to different people. You know the whole, the truth is in the middle argument? You have a talk with someone (or you interview them), they have their account and I have mine, with the truth in the middle. But when you have it on tape, it’s then up to the listener or viewer to experience their own account of the story.

As one of my friends here on LinkedIn reminded me, it’s not our job to make sure people feel the way we do, because we’re never supposed to expose that. It’s our job to report the facts as we know them. Tell it sister!

To me this is why Twitter is so integral right now. You have reporters in pressers live tweeting what’s happening. If we know these reporters to be reputable, can we not assume their Tweets are true, or trust them? So far the stories I’m following on Twitter and even some I’ve seen posted by friends on Facebook, that I’ve gone out and double-sourced (IMPORTANT), have actually been true. But then I’ve thinned my Facebook crowd considerably over the last 3 years.

But that’s a topic for another day.

How do you decipher facts?