An interpretation of known facts can also be distorted to offer a different viewpoint of events if there are other factors in consideration. The basis of any research, whether fictional or factual, is to discover more than three accounts that confirm an event and then these statements may be judged trustworthy.

The extract that follows is from a one-act play I wrote, "By the Green of the Spring." A newspaper editor, Henry Crawford, never hesitates when he senses a good story. Laura Parry has lost her husband Ben, a corporal in a Welsh regiment, to a roadside bombing in the Middle East, and she is distraught with added grief and anger for what Crawford had done by sending a reporter to her home. Opening the front door, her daughter, Joanne, a six -year-old, speaks to the reporter, while Laura, half asleep, hears their voices as she awakens.The reporter tells Joanne her father has been killed.

Laura:   I had my words prepared and now I have forgotten them. Damn you! I have been waiting three days to see you and you have been unavoidably detained according to your secretary. None of your staff would look at me as I came into your office. Is this conversation going to bring me any satisfaction? Why will you not look at me?

Crawford:    I wish you would sit down, Mrs. Parry. You look tired.

Laura:   I prefer to stand, thank you. You have a perfect view from the top floor of the city.

Crawford:   I probably was busy over the past few days and that is why I could not speak to you. You have my sympathies.

Laura:    Joanne is still not sleeping at night. Nothing I do or say will dissuade her that something terrible is going to happen to me. 

Crawford:   The reporter should not have asked the questions he did.

Laura:  I was sleeping heavily while I heard her speaking to him. I had not even heard from the Ministry of Defence that Ben had been blown to bits, for Christ's sake! I should have been told. He questioned my daughter in all her innocence. I was not brought up like he was. I would have respected a family's privacy if a husband and father had been killed overseas defending their country. (Pauses). Joanne is a child and so innocent. She sees no wrong in people and I suppose Ben and I are responsible for that. The cheerful little girl I loved has become withdrawn and asking when her daddy is coming home. People are sympathetic while we are out and she sees the pity in their eyes. I am tired and I lose my patience, which I don't mean to do, as she follows me everywhere. The words she spoke to that man were what any boy or girl would have said if they had lost a parent: my daddy is with the angels. She believes in Jesus, love her.

Crawford:   It should not have happened like that.

Laura:   Is that the only apology I am going to get off you?

Crawford:   I did not mean it to sound like that. 

Laura:   Joanne's photograph should never have been printed.

Crawford:   The story was of human interest, Mrs. Parry. That is why it came out the next day. 

Laura:  The only truth shown is when you have somerthing terrible to print about the army and the wrongdoings they have supposedly done. Ben was scathing about that. Whom do you think they were fighting? You should suddenly be showing a keen interest when soldiers cannot wear their own uniforms in this country. Why has that happened?  My sister said that there have been comments on so-called social media about Joanne and Ben's death. I would not even grace it with a reply. She said there were photographs on the internet of Joanne standing in the garden, her dressing gown blowing in the breeze.

Crawford;   People will find something else to speak of when there is another story.

Laura:   Are you saying that Ben's death did not matter?

Crawford:   No.

Laura:  Then what do you mean?

Crawford:   Words matter to me. I know you will not believe me, Mrs. Parry. Sometimes, an action does not turn out as you wish. The proprietor of the paper decided to run the story, overruling my objections. I knew your father, Mrs Parry. . .