Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: It's not so much the address as the type of address

This whole blogger authority thing has been on my mind for a while.
Mary Anne — (archived)

Jason's blog hit all the right buttons first.

With the very public problems the traditional media have had with a few well-publicized cases of journalistic fraud, and the anonymous nature of the internet, blogging looks like a whisper campaign waiting to happen. Blogging is no more immune to exaggeration and outright fraud than any other form of journalism.

I don't want to condemn blogs or censor them. (Ask anyone here how I react to censorship.) But as someone who acts as the interface between the information industry and information seekers, and especially since most of my customers are children, I find it vital to be able to establish who is reliable and who is not, both when I supply sources and when I teach how to evaluate them.

With opinion, it's easy: check the links. I don't check them all, mind you, but I do go through a sizable minority.

With reporting in its many forms, as with non-fiction in general, the biggest check is the identity of the writer. It's not so easy to check this anymore.

I find your idea of a kind of blog editorial board, the Better Business Bureau of Bloggers, very encouraging. If I have to endure character assassination by groupies every time I express doubt about a blogger with holes in his pedigree, I will avoid recommending them at all. It's not worth the aggravation. Having a kind of clearinghouse regulated by bloggers would be a positive step.

The message in and of it self is neither true or untrue because of the messenger.

In general, yes. If a messenger makes things up to support his message, e.g., "we are dying of plague because the Jews have poisoned the well", we'll have a problem.

How quickly we accept the message might be, depending on our comfort with the messenger for good or for ill.

Accept, reject, whatever. The important thing is to be able to discuss the message with confidence. If everything is entertainment, and the news can be staged and scripted as a matter of course --something we're struggling with right now -- we can kiss democracy goodbye.

Thank you for taking this concern seriously.

Regards--
Mary Anne

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