(just a little note…i’m not gonna cite these things any more because i don’t need to write a paper anymore. i’ll just give you a nice link from now on)
The article (www.innovationjournalism.org/archive/INJO-3-4/baltatzis.pdf) by the people at innovationjournalism.org talks about how rumors and rants seem to be commonplace in the blogosphere, so how do you decide which blogs are credible?
Ken Paulman from The Spokesman Review says, “We hold all news to the same standards, regardless of whether it’s online or in print. But that raises a different question: do readers hold information they read on the Internet to a different standard? Do you trust a story more because it’s in black-and-white on a sheet of newsprint, or does it make a difference? What about typos and grammatical errors?
- i think he makes a valid point. do we think things are less credible because they’re online? maybe so. it seems as if people are putting more faith in the internet, but even so, some are hesitant. every joe-schmoe could, theoretically, type up a blog if he wanted to, so why should we hold the general public to the same standards as those professional journalists?
“Blog responsibly, and you’ll build a reputation for being a trusted news source. Don’t, and you won’t have a reputation to worry about.” (John Hiler)
- hmm. so it looks like if you keep posting true information, you build a reputation. figures as much. people aren’t typically as stupid as we make them out to be; they won’t believe every single thing on the internet, just as they will believe things that have hard evidence backing them up.
