Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
This is an ethical dilemma. There’s a weblogger reporting something as fact, yet I’m 99.99%, his ‘fact’ is completely fabricated. In fact, I’ve been pretty sure he’s full of it for a long time — taking weblogging on the longest roll in history.
However, I don’t have proof. I have strong circumstantial evidence, but no proof.
I suppose if this person was a reporter for New York Times, being a weblogger I wouldn’t seek proof. But we don’t fact check each other, like we fact check the Times or CBS. In fact, we don’t necessarily have the means to fact check each other.
Then there’s the issue of what harm does it cause. “Who cares.” After all, it isn’t that any of us are Dan Rather. In this case, though, I think there could be harm. I’m pretty sure it will result in harm to the weblogger, but it could result in harm to others.
Perhaps what I need to do is see if Sheila’s paper will fact check him — kind of turning the tables on the tabbies, so to speak.
I do know one thing: you all believe webloggers too much. And there’s nothing in this environment to support such faith.
