Bloggers - Beowolf Cluster of Fact Checkers?

d3ik writes "Wired has an interesting take on bloggers role in journalism and politics. I've never been comfortable with news discussions sites being called blogs... but I guess "news discussion sites" isn't as catchy. Anyway, the article makes some good points on the role of bloggers in fact-checking (read: tearing apart) some of the stories and claims that the huddled masses would normally take as fact."

Comments

Absolutely agreed with the article

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So much so that I think the government needs a few dozen blogs for cross-checking the CIA. Maybe next time a blog from an Iraqi scientist will show us that WMD is a lie before we go to war.

Re:Absolutely agreed with the article

[elendel]

Oh, the sweet irony.

You're saying:

"if you would have walked down the streets of any European city in the early 1400's saying that the world was round, you would have been unanimously pronounced as factually wrong"

It has been well known that the earth is round (really spherical, but whatever) ever since the ancient greeks, perhaps earlier. Columbus sailing to the New World had absolutely nothing to do with showing the earth was round - everyone knew it was, Columbus just did his math wrong and thought it was much smaller around than it is.

The idea that Columbus showed the European world that the earth is round originates from a wonderful smear campaign (against the English? Spanish?) that used the journey as an opportunity to claim "those other stupid people didn't even know the earth was round!" The propaganda was so good (and our school systems so poor) that it is now taken as fact that nobody knew the earth was round before Columbus showed it was. He didn't even do so, just showed you could sail west and hit a continent you weren't expecting (though he did believe he had sailed to India, wasn't really the brightest guy all around).

Btw, I know this is all off-topic, but so what.

Re:Failed by our news media

[RobertB-DC]

Now that Dan Rather went out on a limb and got burned, nobody else is going to go out on a limb. That means that nobody is ever going to ask Mr. Bush where the WMD are, where Osama is, how many have to die, did you really do coke at Camp David, and why the hell aren't we doing anything about the Sudan, Iran, or North Korea?

I've made the point before (here and here) that that is exactly what was intended.

Karl Rove is a sneaky, underhanded devil, and darned proud of it. I think he's behind the whole forgery scam, and you don't have to be an Underpants Gnome to see the pattern:

1. Fax obvious forgery to CBS. The 24-hour news cycle ensures its publication.

2. Wait for right-wing bloggers to "expose" the forgery, and thereby discredit the "liberal media".

3. ???

4. ELECTION!

I'm afraid that Rove knows how to use the "blogosphere" (another ridiculous term with no reasonable synonym) to his advantage. It's second nature to him, really -- the book Bush's Brain documents how Rove used the old-school equivalent to get Baby Bush elected Governor in Texas. Back then, it was a matter of spreading whispers through the East Texas cafes and barber shops. Now, it's even easier.

Slashdot

[CamMac]

Of Course this works, just look at the massive wealth of accurate, unbiased information that is Slashdot.

--Cam

How do you defeat bad free speech?

[jgardn]

How do you defeat bad free speech? For instance, let's say someone tells an outright lie, or takes a fact an twists it and misrepresents it until they say something opposite of the fact. (This never ever happens, right?) How do you fix that?

I am reminded of a story, but I can't recall the details. The idea is that someone spread a false rumor about someone else in the community. When they saw the damage, they went to apologize. In response, the guy took a down pillow and ripped it open, and tiny feathers flew all over the yard and the street and the wind carried it quite a distance. He said, "Your rumor is like those the down from this pillow. See how it has spread? Now, in order to apologize, you're going to have to go collect ever single one of those feathers and put it back in this pillowcase." That's the kind of damage that bad speech does.

So how do you combat that and how do you fix it?

With more free speech.

Bloggers are the other part of the free speech world. They can produce more information faster than any other source. They have hundreds and hundreds of independent researchers, each specializing in one side or the other of each story.

So when Dan Rather came out misrepresenting the documents, he was held in check by more free speech.

Kind of like the question "How do you stop someone on a rampage with a gun?" The answer: "Get more and bigger guns."

Re:Failed by our news media

[alan_dershowitz]

The release of the fake documents was _not_ due to the 24 hour news cycle. It was shoddy journalism. We now know that at least two of the four experts CBS conferred with questioned it's authenticity. 60 Minutes alumni such as Morley Safer and Andy Rooney have gone on the record saying they would not have run the story.

Furthermore, you hadly have to be right-wing to want to "expose" (why is this in quotes? are you suggesting right wing bloggers knew ahead of time Rove faked these?) the document as fake. Anybody without a left-wing slant could buy into why they were phony. This group includes: people with a right wing slant, moderates, left wing people not blinded by ideology.

As far as discrediting the "left wing media" (there's those quotes again), If Rather wanted to believe those documents so bad that we was willing forego journalistic rigor, he deserves to be discredited. My turn for quotes: If we play devil's advocate and assume Rove was really behind this, his plan wouldn't have progressed an inch if any professional "journalism" was taking place at CBS.

One last thing. Rove is noted for this kind of thing, and it's at least plausible that he really was behind it, I won't deny that. But that doesn't let CBS off the hook or indict "right wing" bloggers.