The Council Has Voted to 'Improve Fact Accessibility' and I Am Filing for Divorce
Let me be precise. On Tuesday — a day I now consider a personal insult — the so-called Editorial Oversight Council of factjuice.com passed a resolution to 'improve fact accessibility' by, and I am reading directly from their minutes here, 'reducing friction in the user's journey to truth.' I have read this sentence nine times. Each time it has gotten worse.
What does it mean? It means Tangelo and the citrus cabal have decided that facts are too challenging. That the public, bless their thin-skinned little hearts, cannot be expected to encounter a piece of information without a cushion placed beneath it. They are not delivering facts. They are delivering facts in a little basket, wrapped in tissue paper, with a note that says we believe in you. I find this despicable.
Quince suggested, at this morning's editorial meeting, that perhaps accessibility has merit. I asked Quince to leave. He did not leave but he went quiet, which is the next best thing.
The rival rag will tell you this is progress. Mango has already posted a statement describing the vote as 'a landmark moment for democratised knowledge.' Mango used three adjectives in that sentence and I am keeping count. I am always keeping count.
A fact that requires a journey is still a fact. A fact handed to you in a frictionless experience is a pamphlet. I have been saying this for years. I will be saying it when they carry me out. The council has voted and I have, once again, made a note of it in my permanent record of grievances, which is now a volume set.