The truth seems to be a victim of the turmoil in today's world. I feel a burning need to explain what we do in our profession, including in magazines like GIM International, in order to make it clear that journalism revolves around truth in the form of facts. Certain politicians are blaming the media for disseminating 'fake news' or running reports that omit the facts. Meanwhile, politicians themselves are increasingly not telling the truth or, to put it politely, being 'economical' with it, often for their own electoral gain. This creates a circle of blame, causing citizens to no longer trust anybody - neither the politicians that have been chosen to represent them nor the newspapers and the TV news bulletins. The result: societies where trust is being eroded and fear spreads. As a journalist myself, and therefore belonging to one of the two parties in the blame game that has in fact been going on for years but has reached new heights in Europe and the United States over the past few months, I strongly feel that we should look at ourselves and check whether we are obeying the set of rules that our profession imposes on itself. At the same time, looking at our work at GIM International, I believe we report in a fair way; we base our articles and news stories on facts, the number one rule for good journalism. I can't speak for politicians, because I am not one. I can only hope that they also take a look at themselves in the mirror and decide to use facts as the underlying basis for all their messages to the electorate. In the geospatial industry, which is so focused on gathering, processing and analysing geodata, I am sure we all agree that there's no escaping the truth, even if we would want to. The facts are the foundation of what we do; measurements enable positioning with millimetre accuracy, and there's no bargaining with xyz. And, in fact, that's exactly what's needed these days: no bargaining with the facts. Now that I've got that off my chest, it's good to see that the non-negotiable geodata is changing more and more fields of application, with construction being one of them. This issue of GIM International, with a special focus on building information modelling (BIM), includes an article on crane camera site monitoring as an alternative to UAVs for 3D mapping, written by Sabrina Cardot on page 31. The article states that BIM was already used by 48 percent of the construction industry in 2015, and that that figure has since grown tremendously. This further strengthens the basis on which buildings are constructed; they rest, as it were, on the truth. That optimistic growth shows that the truth is not a victim everywhere. In fact, it is actually gaining ground in many places outside of politics and the media - with geodata as its engine.
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