By Jerry Riley

I sometimes have a hard time knowing what to believe about whom. The other day Headline News channel (HLN) was saying less than 3% of Internet pharmacies conform to U.S. laws. It is known that you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Some things broadcast or published as news may just be the newscaster's opinions or random thoughts.

I remember a special report, years ago, where the network was in such a hurry to get the bulletin on the air about an airline crash, they had the wrong airline and the wrong flight number.

HLN reported AMTRAK employees were failing drug tests, but the agency was not taking appropriate disciplinary action.

Only you can decide what, or whom, to believe. Before I write a column using “facts,” I either have to observe the incident, or have at least two independent sources, and then I have to try to make sure one source hasn’t used the other source as a source. Even as careful as I am, check out my information with your own sources. If I am wrong (and what a revoltin’ development this is), I like to know it, so I can both correct my information and re-double check my sources.

I see a lot of reposts on Facebook and receive a lot of email full of “information” that is incorrect. This is not difficult to find out if it is accurate. I wonder how it affects that person’s overall credibility with others?

On the History Channel I once heard a “historian” say that in ancient times, people must have had extraterrestrial help, since mankind could not have figured things out by themselves? Why would he say that? Was he there? An old saying? We’ve heard, “Necessity is the Mother of invention,” and ancient people had a lot of necessity. Just because we can’t do something by hand, doesn’t mean no one could.

Jerry Riley comments for the News Bulletin. He is a retired telecommunications supervisor.