Amusing blog post on the perils of blogging which I think illustrates a couple of things about the blogsphere. The lack of editorial oversight implicit in the system obviously produces problems now and the speed of propagation is a friend to the headline. Less obvious is the role of “a thousand eyes” in correcting any obvious falsehoods. Its a form of quality control, one mind and a pair of eyes might not see a problem if there is one, but scrutinise something with a million critical minds and if there’s a problem there is a much better chance of someone spotting it. Obviously this form of oversight can work well for high volume content but getting it right before something goes live is still a better option IMO.
Clearly the system is evolving and as news continues to shift to a decentralised shared environment away from the rigid structures of the past, more issues are bound to arise from the lack of pre-publication editorial oversight. Sites that depend on their credibility will have to move to address the problem or lose their audience. Sounds very much like journalism 101 needs an editor.
WITN?: Yahoo didn’t sentence 200,000 Iranians to death, and other misadventures in online journalism.
