On 3/2/06, Geoffrey Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
The problem I'm facing at the moment with Ethiopian articles is that last November Meles Zenawi closed down the media in his country, following riots over the election results. (There's some disagreement over who started these riots: whether it the opposition parties who called for demonstrations or the police who were told to "keep order".) As a result, I'm finding that if I want to write adequately detailed articles, I'm faced with using unacceptible sources -- namely Weblogs & web forums. For every event that a reputable source like the BBC publishes, there are about 5 more that I end up learning about in other ways.
Just so you know, I'm an editor that thinks taht weblogs and web forums are acceptable sources.
I think providing a source is a lot more important than trying to ensure its reliability--let the reader provide their own determination of the weight to give to the source.
I trust readers more than I trust journalists, frankly.