A mixed blessing

any people seem to find it difficult to accept that the information they get may be unreliable. It does not come out of nowhere: someone, somewhere, has had to put it together. That someone may have got the wrong end of the stick, or made use of hearsay, or deliberately set out to mislead.

Public relations people, for example, often put out press releases, which are little more than sales promotion. They can easily create a false impression.

Information is slanted, twisted, misrepresented. Achievements may be exaggerated and awkward facts may be suppressed. In politics, ‘spin doctors’ are experts in dissembling. In business too, there are many specialists who have a vested interest in ensuring that everything a company does is presented in a favourable way.

My own profession is not without blame. Journalists frequently print stories which turn out to be inaccurate and TV programmes give a distorted picture of what is happening in various parts of the world. It is dangerous to read newspapers casually. That’s how the germ of a myth is planted. The next thing you know, it has grown into a fact. A glance at a headline, a swift scan of the introduction, a note of the picture caption, and you are on your way to a firmly held misconception.

Look back at the text and find there the words or expressions meaning the following.

a make someone believe something which is untrue

b embarrassing pieces of information

c hidden from the public

d present something inaccurately

e a wrong belief or opinion