‘World’s oldest man dies’

This headline caught my attention. And my first reaction was…how do we know?

That’s just the way I think. How do we know what we think we know? Do we just believe what is reported as truth? Okay, so public records probably account for this one, that’s easy to surmise. The world could have any number of older people still alive, and if they’re not ‘accounted for’ in public records, who knows? Besides the people in their immediate lives, that is…

But then, that raises the question (for me, anyway) of how far media search for information like this, or whether they just avail themselves of what’s easily found in an internet search or aggregator.

All rhetorical ponderings, which probably reflect on an over-extended journalist who loves research but always questions what is true.

And happens to have a Google aggregator for a homepage.