This is a genuine question: What do people get out of reading “both sides” (or all sides) of editorialized news? Specifically compared to just reading the facts of the situation.

I’ve been reading almost exclusively AP News for years (and occasionally listening to NPR), and I really like getting the details of whatever just happened (or is currently happening) without too much of a spin or a “take” on it. I can use the primary sources from the article and then form my own opinions.

It’s been awhile since I’ve done much reading from other sources. I used to like NYT, but not so much recently. I don’t really feel like I’m missing much other than the occasional deep dive investigative journalism piece, so I’m curious what other people are getting out of it.

That’s fair, but my point is that the NYT headline/article seems to be so simplified that it almost becomes contradictory. For example, you quoted this bit

The agency took the unusual step of creating websites debunking the conspiracy theory that chemicals are being sprayed in the sky to control the weather or do other things.

But later in the article it also says

The chief executive of Rainmaker, Augustus Doricko, has said that while the company released silver iodide into a pair of clouds on July 2, the mission led to less than half a centimeter of rain falling on drought-stricken farmland

So there is a company that is effectively “spraying chemicals in the sky” with the express intent of “leading to rain falling”. Again, I realize that is very different from the “chemtrail” conspiracy theory, but that nuance could have been handled so much better.

I much prefer the phrasing of the AP article’s headline that I linked earlier: “No, weather modification did not cause the deadly flash floods in Texas.”

Kind of reductive that the headline is “Chemtrials are not real or causing foods”, but the linked website points out that contrails are real, and

Current models indicate that persistent contrail clouds could have a small net warming effect.

And considering that climate change is considered a contributing factor to floods…

Additionally, one of the leading conspiracy theories related to the floods is about cloud seeding, not chemtrails. And, while cloud seeding is real (and has happened in south-central Texas), it did not cause the Texas floods.

So yes, the headline is technically correct, but there’s a lot of additional context that I feel like they’re skipping over.

Thanks for the source. After watching the video, the “Mr. Japan” bit was honestly much less noteworthy than the completely incoherent rambling about sending letters to countries congratulating them on the privilege of being able to “shop in the USA”. He just kept repeating that and then naming random percentages. It felt like I was having a stroke trying to understand what he was even trying to say.