Life is tough without facts we can rely upon

Facebook has begun sharing basic information about its most visited groups and posts, part of an effort to discredit "independent" analysis sites and tools -- one is called "Newswhip." Facebook owns an alternate tool called CrowdTangle.

According to Facebook, an obscure Green Bay Packers alumni page and one from a CBD company rank ahead of mostly conservative/reactionary pages, as independent analysis has found.

I still have a Facebook feed, feeling confident that I can scroll by the wackier posts in favor of some nugget of news about a far-off friend hosting his grandchildren (teaching them cribbage) or about how 'Ted Lasso' is changing the world (it isn't, BTW, but it should).

My point today is to remind us all of the importance of independent journalism that we can trust. 

Having Facebook do its own analysis of its effects on society is similar to asking the Nazi party to analyze how things were going in Germany in the 1930s. There is a lot of potential for truth twisting. Say, did I just snidely compare Facebook to Nazis? Maybe. 

A less provocative comparison might be to asking a young kid how the school day went. No matter the answer, we might suspect that Suzie's response left something out or misstated what actually happened. Perhaps that is why we rarely dig too deeply into Suzie's story. Constant suspicion of our loved ones is exhausting.

Journalism, when done right, is closer to the skepticism of the old newspaper advice: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." 

My take on that provocative saying has always been that successful arguments -- and everything is an argument of some sort -- need some sort of support, through examples or anecdotes or statistics or recognized experts. 

It's easy to say to someone: I love you. It's much more compelling to demonstrate that love through daily actions and conversation.

We can argue about Facebook all day, but one thing seems clear: without some sort of trustworthy analysis that lets us see what users are actually reading, nothing could possibly change. 

If Facebook says it loves us, check it out.