On 3/3/06, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is something of a slippery slope one -- i.e. whereas newspapers etc. are extremely controlled, blogs are extremely uncontrolled, and both lack for accountability and reliability for different reasons. But at least we have a historical understanding of the fallibility of traditional media, and fewer people understand the strengths and weaknesses of blogs/websites/electronic-only media.
Indeed. However, any study of newspapers soon shows they are able to publish, at times, utter tripe, devoid of an ounce of accuracy. While on the other hand there are some blogs that are extremely accurate and prime sources in their particular field.
The one advantage newspapers have here is that, being hardcopy, it's easier to be sure that the one you're reading is the same one the original author read and used as a source. Most blogs, like most websites, have little sense of history - articles are revised with little or no notation to inform the reader, and often older, pre-revision versions are inaccessible.
Also, most newspapers have been around for long enough that their likelihood for bias and inaccuracy is well understood, and the relative rankings of newspapers are reasonably well known. Most people in the United States know well enough to trust the New York Times over the New York Post, for instance, and both over the National Enquirer - and most realise that all three could be wrong.
But a lot of the bias against blogs is, in my opinion, simply the classic problem of trying to make Wikipedia resemble traditional encyclopedias. People forget that Wiki is not paper.
People forget that Wiki is not paper in the less obvious ways.
-Matt