This story is from our February 2024 update newsletter that offers communications insights, and hopefully, some amusing diversion.

This is a hard place to find these days. But there is one place to find it: the newswire services: Dow Jones, Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters, among others.

Here’s an example of why this is true. The Reuters tear sheet to the right is a ho-hum story about Carl Icahn doing what he does. Another day, another board. And Reuters dispatched it with a mere 486 words.

But note the resources Reuters put behind it shown in red: two reporters and three editors. It’s hard to divert or overlook the truth with five sets of eyes. And note this was an update. Sixteen hours after publishing the article they went back to add more facts.

Factual reporting is in the DNA of newswire services. It has to be. Their stories are distributed to thousands of other news outlets who pay for them because, without an unimpeachable source of facts, they would need to uncover these facts on their own. This is too expensive for most news outlets. In other cases, it’s impossible. Reuters is on the ground in ~200 locations, including hot spots like Moscow and Hong Kong.

If you are looking for unimpeachable facts free of bias, start with the newswire services.

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