Fact Vs Opinion

Open any Pakistani newspaper and you will find two very different kinds of writing on the same page. The news report on the front says: petrol price has increased by 12 rupees per litre. The opinion column on the editorial page says: the latest petrol hike will crush the middle class. The first is a fact. The second is an opinion. A reader who confuses the two ends up confused about the world.

A fact has three properties. It can be checked. It does not change based on who is saying it. It is true today and yesterday and tomorrow in the same way. The petrol price on a particular date can be confirmed from OGRA's notification. Anyone who looks at the same notification will see the same number. That is what makes it a fact.

An opinion is not bad. Opinions are how thinking citizens process facts. The danger comes when an opinion is presented as a fact, or when a fact is dressed up as an opinion to soften it. The reader's job is not to reject opinions; the reader's job is to know which is which.

Pakistani columnists like Khurram Husain in Dawn or Wusatullah Khan in BBC Urdu are honest opinion writers. They state their opinions clearly and back them up with facts. Their writing is opinion, but it is grounded opinion. Compare that with anonymous WhatsApp forwards that mix one fact with five opinions and one outright lie, all in the same voice.

Today's habit. Pick one news article and one opinion column from the same newspaper. Read both. Then make two columns on a page: facts on the left, opinions on the right. You will be surprised to find facts in the opinion column and opinions in the news column. That surprise is the lesson, not a problem.