Just the facts ma'am, nothing but the facts.

[screembloodymurder]

A friend and I got into an argument over the credibility of internet blogs vs. traditional media. He refuses to read any blogs because he feels the facts cannot be trusted and the authors have no professional code of conduct or editorial oversight. He has a point, but given that our traditional media failed to question the Bush administration's bogus WMD claims which led to our disastrous involvement in Iraq, who can we trust? What internet sources do you rely on for accurate information and how do you verify the author's credentials?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. I come here

because I find that if something is posted that appears to be bogus to someone, they usually come right out and say it!

[madokie]

2. When I read the same thing from several different authors

I have a tendency to believe some of it. I have the paper delivered, two of them actually, everyday but I still go to the internet to get the real news. The paper is only for the most part still being bothered with out of habit and respect to the institution of a free press.

[acmavm]

3. He thinks the internet sources have no professional code of conduct? Does

he think the MSM does? Is he not familiar with the saga of Judy Miller? How about the NYT and their way they hid important info from its readers so as to 'not influence the election'?

[screembloodymurder]

4. I pointed out how MSM is planted with propaganda and spin, but he says everyone has an agenda.

I think everyone is prone to accepting spin which reinforces their own core values. Bloggers do tend to substantiate each other without first checking their facts so two sources may not be enough. Which bloggers have developed a reputation for factual reporting? Who has earned your trust?

[acmavm]

5. I troll first through here and then through Kos and I find that I pick up on the

most varied articles, sites, and blogs on the web. I don't believe ANYONE until I see it a couple of places at least (as a general rule).

[warren pease]

6. International newspaper websites like the Guardian and Independent in the UK...

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control -- 'indoctrination', we might say -- exercised through the mass media... In a capitalist society the mass media are capitalist institutions. The fact that these institutions reflect the ideology of dominant economic interests is hardly surprising.

Noam Chomsky, 'Politics', in Language and Responsibility.

If people would just read and consider the simple, obvious truth of Chomsky's words, it would become pretty clear, pretty quickly, why US mass media has failed so spectacularly at its most essential role: shining light into the dark corners where the corporate and governmental thieves meet to finalize their latest reverse Robin Hood scheme.

The press was supposed to function as a national bullshit detection system and truth telling service, tracking every illegal move made by the rich, powerful, well-connected and utterly corrupt until there's enough uncontested proof of criminality or racketeering to expose their scams to the public. Same treatment for corrupt government officials, only more so.

The problem is, American corporate mass media, notably its former news and information operations, had been moving away from all that public service nonsense since the coming of Saint Ronald the Raygun, patron saint of rich profiteers, deregulators, monopolists and other assorted slimeballs, thieves and international crime syndicates.

It's now in the marketing and PR business, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bushies, advocating for the seamy collection of war profiteers, oil execs, Wall St. thieves, insurance industry parasites, private armies and the rest of the worst humanity has to offer.

It's gotten so bad that US mass media is about the last place a reasonably inquisitive person would look for useful information about actual events that take place in their own country.

Same with US foreign policy. This site, called journalists without borders, is a serious, fact-based info outlet, mercifully devoid of co-opted shills and feather-headed lying rat bastards like world-class dipshit Brian Williams.

So it's a complete waste of time to look to CNN or the rest of the reactionary propaganda machine for an account of the day's events. The best you're likely to get is a happy talk video essay on the upside of poverty and how going broke is the latest fad among suburban hipsters. Followed by a piece on all the ways Congress is looking out for those at risk of foreclosure.

The first will be predictably nauseating and the second will be the shortest video clip since Ari Fleischer's recitation of The Commander Guy's intellectual attainments.


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