Yesterday I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with a reporter from the local Newhouse paper for a weblogging feature that I assume will appear sometime next week.
It was a pretty enjoyable experience, though to be honest I don’t do well in spontaneous interviews — there’s a reason I write a weblog rather than doing a radio show (which I also did for a couple years).
One of the issues we talked about were journalistic standards vs. that used by webloggers. I explained that, for the most part, I don’t see many webloggers trying to fill the shoes of reporters. Occasionally I see webloggers at universities reporting on events there, but most of what I read is commentary on items that appear in traditional media.
What I forgot to point out was that traditional media are occasionally (and sometimes it seems more frequently) duped by fake stories. Look at all of the American news outlets that fell for the “blondes are going extinct” hoax last week. Or this incident where New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pretty much lost what little credibility he still had by citing an e-mail allegedly sent by Secretary of Army Thomas White which now appears to be a likely hoax/forgery. And, of course, the Times also fell hook, line and sinker for the Kaycee weblog hoax.
What I find especially disturbing is Krugman’s explanation of why he cited the e-mail,
I didn’t press for validation because it was consistent with everything else.
But that is exactly when reporters/columnists should ask for validation. Such claims are like people selling Rolexes on the corner for a hundred bucks — things that appear too good to be true usually are. A quote from Caesar that just happens to fit the current situation, a story about blondes going extinct are just too pat to be taken at face value without corroborating evidence, or an e-mail from a Bush administration official that is essentially the admission of a crime are just too pat to accept without corroboration.
The people who take these things at face value are in the same league as the Detroit woman who embezelled millions of dollars and turned it over to the perpetrators of a 419 scheme. Krugman and Salon hav become so obssessed with attacking Bush that they didn’t perform due diligence to see if an e-mail offered by a reporter with numerous ethical problems was accurate. The e-mail fit their preconceived notions of the Bush administration in general and of White in particular, and so they ran with it.
This of course is a very human reaction, and it is one that afflicts traditional media as well as webloggers.
Funny, I thought I’d find a generic explanation of this blogger’s ideas about what the title says.
However, there’s not much of that before the attack on Leopold/Krugman starts again.
In the years since Leopold got burned, he’s turned out numerous excellent stories that are not available anywhere else. He’s one of the people who’s been really direct and straightforward about what he does, unlike some journalists. He tells it exactly like it is, was and his sources are just fine, his work is fine. It’s one of the reasons I support Truthout. I wonder if there’s anything on this blog that doesn’t have to do with Jason Leopold?