As the author of Crap detection 101, Howard Rheingold, said, having to sort out all of the invalad information is not new to the computer age. While random gunk on the net seems more prevelant, that may just be becuase so many people have a voice that streches so far over the internet, where back in the early days of journalism thier voices may not have gone further than their own village.
People like to exagerate a story, in order to make it better and more exciting. That hasn't really changed, instead of stories of sea monsters and giants, we get slightly distorted facts, so close to the real trueth of the matter that it can become harder to see the differance. Some people may not even mean to alter reality, but it happens. However with that being said, there are a lot of people that want to share the trueth, and not change it. The trick is to know the differance.
The ability to develop accurate detecting skills becomes all the more important for journalists of today. Finding credible sorces is the key to reporting on the news, looking for people that know what they are talking about helps.
Notes: Image from http://www.forumspile.com/Spam-CanMan.jpg
It is very true that the gap between fact and fiction is closing in as people exaggerate or stretch the truth. Very good point.
ReplyDeleteI noticed several spelling errors, in your work such as invalad (invalid), prevelant (prevalent), becuase (because), streches (stretches), thier (their), exagerate (exaggerate), trueth (truth), differance (difference), and sorces (sources).