NAMPS, You make several valid points and it is hard to disagree wtih your basic argument. I suppose my point was that if our newspapers contained only verified facts they would be very much thinner than they are now, and many breaking stories that the public demands the right to know about would be reduced to one sentence; "A light aircraft crashed today at XXX. Casualties are unknown."
I think we have to accept that there will be a certain amount of padding, opinion based on limited knowledge and perhaps even mild speculation based on witness interviews and all the other staples of news gathering. While that leaves the door open for the excesses of the tabloids, I think it's a little unfair to tar all journalists with the same brush in such a personal fashion as is often seen here, simply because the journalist concerned is not intimately conversant with technical minutiae.
A fair go, in other words. The main whingers in all probability have even less understanding of a journalist's job than vice versa, but it doesn't stop them complaining bitterly. As in most fields, making the effort to understand the other person's job makes for a better-educated viewpoint and ultimately a system that works better.