Hannuchristmas at the White House. http://t.co/hbJuTSkj

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Chana Masala http://t.co/KI88QSQ2

Cooking preparation http://t.co/359s3XPV

first signs of fall http://t.co/EQup02qU

I wish my work had #TinyDesk concerts. What does it take to get a job at @nprmusic ?

Tell Texas high school: Don’t make survivor pay $35,000 for refusing to cheer for her rapist. http://t.co/T94IIx9 @CREDOMobile #p2

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This was my second speech at Toastmasters. It was written through a wave of emotions, influenced by events that grabbed my attention both in the US and Israel, and the way they were presented to the rest of the world. I had to rewrite this speech a few times to tone it down and remove political references, though if I were asked for a longer version with additional examples, I’m sure I would have been able to find many.

Fact or Fiction

The news can be very confusing these days. We get so much of it, from so many sources: news channels on TV, the radio, the internet, and newspapers. We are exposed to so much information that it has become hard to figure out what is important and what is not. Yet, I am about to add another complication. How can you know whether what you hear is the truth? Why is it important? And if so, what are you going to do about it?

I would like to focus on three types of delivery, all of which can be found in abundance these days: facts, opinions, and fiction.
Let’s start with facts. The dictionary definition of a fact is: Knowledge or information based on real occurrences. Here’s an example of a fact: according to the American Society of News Editors’ data, the employment of newsroom staff has declined by 11% between the years 2008 and 2009. According to the figures provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, during that time employment in the United States as a whole dropped by 4%, and by comparing the numbers in Thomson-Reuter’s filings for 2008 and 2009 I found that employment in their market division was increased by 2%.

We tend to believe that the news we consume are based on dependable facts. We would like to think that the news channels give us an accurate view of the world around us, which is based on well researched information. However, in a time of 24-hour streams of news on every possible media channel, I am not sure this is the case.

This brings me to the second form of delivery I want to discuss: Opinion. I believe that in recent years, opinions, rather than facts, have been governing the news that we consume. This is my opinion, and you may or may not agree with it. In some occasions, it is very clear that this is a presentation is of opinions. The old fashioned news papers, for example, tend to put the title Opinion at the top of the page, in order to let us know that what we are about to read is the opinion of the writer. The transparency about that fact enables us to consider the article critically, and form our own opinion either in support or in opposition to the writer’s. On the news channels, it is often clear that some shows present the opinions of the journalist, or of the guests of the show, though this is not always stated. Yet, we are all smart enough to be able to make that distinction and turn on the critical switch.

But what happens if the difference between fact and opinion is not so clear? What if opinions are presented to us as facts, will we still be able to think about them critically in order to form our own opinion, or will we take them at face value? The line that separates facts from opinions is very thin and fragile. Even when we are given facts, the way they are presented, the wording, and the facts that are chosen to be shared, represent an opinion. For example, earlier I presented employment figures for the entire United States and the news delivery industry, but I chose to focus on one specific company in which employment has increased. These facts help me with an analysis that supports my opinion. The fact, as presented by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism report for 2010, is that a recent cost cutting trend in the news media industry has been to cut down on investigative reporting. In order to fill the gap, the news channels have been using two alternatives: buying syndicated materials from news agencies, such as Reuters and the AP, and for foreign assignments, employing local residents who help foreign correspondents with reporting duties. In my opinion, the local residents are not capable of presenting the news objectively, nor should they. A local will be able to tell their side of the story. This story is then presented to the news channel that employs them as if it was a fact, and that notion is then passed on to you, the viewers, often without the benefit of the other side of the story and without giving you the full picture.

Then, there is fiction. When I stated my facts earlier, I could have told you that the number of journalists working for AP has gone up. This would have supported my opinion about the increased reliance on syndication. However, I don’t really have the numbers to support such a statement, making it fiction. Unfortunately, there have been multiple accounts of fiction being told, and presented as fact, in order to support opinion. This is not necessarily done with a malicious intent. It is more likely to be a reliance on hearsay of a story that has not been verified. In some cases, the facts are correct, but are taken out of context, giving them an entirely different meaning. But sometimes, such stories are told because the people who tell them have an agenda that they support, and they want us to support it too. They know that we are listening out for the facts in order to form our own opinions, and they would like to pull us to their direction.

As consumers of news, it is important that we will be able to distinguish between facts and opinions. I believe it is the responsibility of the media to help us with such distinction, but we also need to take the responsibility of figuring out the subtleties. It is imperative that we analyse what we hear and make up our own mind, because if we feel passionate about a certain subject, this will enable us to act on it.

Therefore, it is vital that you think for yourself in order to form your opinion, and not take anything that is presented to you at face value. I urge you, to consider the facts, and do your own research in order to verify them. Listen to the opinions of others with an open mind, but with a sense of criticism. You may agree with it or you may not, but either way it will give you food for thought. If a subject is close to your heart, take action. You are able to make your own analysis of the news, so don’t let the news media dumb it down for you. Think for yourselves, and don’t just take my word for it.

Tel Aviv Wildlife, originally uploaded by Deviant Brainwave.

A visit at home is a bundle of mixed feelings. Much of it is excitement about the upcoming occasion of seeing family and friends that I have been missing for a very long time, eager anticipation to visit places I haven’t seen for at least a year, and mouth watering hunger for fine foods that cannot be found anywhere in the Midwest. Added to it are anxiety about the upcoming long flights, anger about chores that need to be completed while in Israel, and guilt about missing a long period at work.

Those feelings don’t change much during the visit, or after it. Our latest visit to Tel Aviv was no different. Meeting family and friends was true joy, which I regret cannot happen more often. Each meeting was a pleasure that was only dampened by the need to run off to the next meeting on the itinerary. This was also a source of stress, to the extent that meetings blended together to an unrecognizable mesh. At one point I thought about a friend, and told E. that I remember we met her, but I cannot recall where, or when, or what the conversation was about.

I wish I could be in Israel more often, and see more people in a way that is more evenly spread throughout the year. However, this is not realistic considering the distance, the time it takes to get there, and costs. I wish even more that some of my family and friends would consider coming to visit here. It would be amazing if they came to Cincinnati, but even if they came part of the way it would be better than nothing. This summer, I traveled a few times to New York, Chicago, and even as far as Texas to see people who came to visit in the US. Spending time with these people with the ability to give them my full attention was priceless.

E. and I did get a little time to breath, though. We took in the city and the sights, and enjoyed the warm weather. Clearly, climate is subjective, since we came in from the cold and snowy Midwest and enjoyed sunny Tel Aviv, while everyone around us complained about the cold. We even took a couple of walks along the beach, yet another thing I wish we could do more often.