Another winter’s day Monday and another litany of claims that the country is going to hell in a hand cart. Firstly today the Salvation Army launched it’s winter appeal by releasing a survey.

The first I knew of it was when I was Television One’s breakfast panel this morning. There the survey was headlined like this. “Shocking new Salvation Army survey finds nearly half of New Zealanders have gone without heating, 37 percent have skipped a meal as winter costs bite”

Now to be honest I don’t know where the shocking part of the headline came from mainly because I think we’ve all been there.

For instance. In my house we have strict rules about heating. It’s on for one hour in the morning and two hours at night and if you get cold go get a puffer jacket. We have slowly been replacing the insulation in our house. Actually to be honest we’ve been installing it because as we found out a few years ago our 100 year old house had not one fibre of insulation.

My bedroom is not insulated. This morning at 7am it was 7 degrees Celsius. We counter that with a good duvet and a quick dash to the kitchen each morning.  So we go without heating but because we choose to. We could overheat the house if we want to but choose not to.

This is not to discredit the survey’s findings but like all things they need a closer look especially as it is released on a day the charity is seeking to raise money. So the survey was done by Pure Profile. Here’s what they say on their website.

“Since 2000, more than a million people have chosen to join Pureprofile to share their opinions and unlock the true value of their data. They answer questions via our mobile and web apps to build a secure asset from their information and in return receive personalised content, insights and financial rewards.”

So it was an opt in with financial rewards.

What I can say is that some people are poor, some people can’t afford their heating costs, some people also skip meals. Some people also can’t afford to heat their house because they want it at 22 degrees 24 hours a day. But the figures are designed to be disturbing for maximum impact.

I thought the same as the litany of business confidence results came out and a number of chambers of commerce blamed the government for sinking confidence levels. One common complaint is that the government is getting rid of the 90 day trial. Which is not entirely correct.

They’re taking it away from companies with more than 20 people. The common complaint that the loss of the 90 day trial will hit small businesses is just not true. And the legislation doing it is still well away. Just a little bit of fake news going round.

It’s similar to the whole Russians rigged the election debate. While intelligence agencies and the President have admitted that the Russians have meddled in the information flow around the election, no-one has ever suggested that a Russian ever cast a vote.

As far as we can tell so far every vote for Trump was an American vote. Words like rigged or hacked do not mean the same as meddled.

The world is full of people using language that flatters them the most. Just be aware of it and realise that fake news is not a new invention and it’s used by everyone with something to sell.