Blogs and Reliability

Here is a comment I left at SmartPEI in response to this post:

The self correcting power of the 'sphere

Last night on the CBC news there was an item which suggested that you should not trust everything that you see on the web. The journalist reassured us that the editorial process in the traditional media was the best safeguard. I am not sure about this.

Funny how timely this was. Within hours of my posting the dramatic picture of the people about to be drowned by the wave, I was told that this not the Tsunami but an event in China 2 years ago. See the comments. he picture of the boy that I had received today was the picture that had led to his being reunited with his father last week. Again se the comments. The email I got was slow.
My point?

That the web has fakes and can offer either wrong or late information but that it also has powerful self correcting processes that are as good or maybe better than the traditional editing process of the traditional media

I think that traditional media and the ad hoc web media have more in common in this respect than either would perhaps admit.

They both rely on reputation to a large degree. The CBC and other media outlets have to rely on their reputations as authoritative sources of information, and too many mistakes will jeopardize that reputation.

Similarly, web users rely often on a quick visit to a site like http://www.snopes.com/ to check on the validity of some mass email they just received. The people behind Snopes have worked very hard over the last decade to cement their reputation as a reliable source, which can serve as a common reference point for web users to check each other's facts.

As useful as blogs are to factcheck what appears in the daily papers, their only source is often simply past editions of other daily newspapers, showing contradictions.

Like Snopes, any blogger wishing to become a trusted source will have to build up his or her reputation for thoroughness, accuracy and honesty over a period of years in order to become a reliable source.

A look at the liberal vs. conservative alternate blog universes that cover American politics is a good way to show that people are far too often tempted to simply follow opinions they feel comfortable agreeing with.