Long Time No See
Hey everyone, I realized I haven’t posted in a while. In truth, I’ve just been busy doing a lot of reading. I’ve been checking things out both locally and nationally. I just haven’t felt particularly inclined to blog about it. But hey, that’s ok. It’s not like I’m some kinda news source or something. And that brings me to the real subject of this entry.
Just the other day I checked out Sherlock Holmes at the theater (great movie; I’ll definitely pick it up on DVD). Now I can’t say I’ve ever ready any of the Sherlock Holmes books, but the character in this movie said something that really got my brain jogging:
Never theorize before you have data. Invariably, you end up twisting facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
Fascinating. Also very true. This seems to be the modus operandi of many blog sites. Essentially taking something factual and then creating a whole conspiracy theory around it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Blogs are supposed to be for the most part an expression of someone’s opinion on various matters. It is a problem though when people take what they read on a blog and equate it to real news.
Don’t get me wrong, blogging CAN be journalism. There are people who actually get out there, do interviews, follow up and cite sources and then write a blog story. But then there are people who get their hands on one thing and instead of try to dig deeper, interview people and try to get more facts they just run with that one fact and create their own account of events. Then, adding insult to injury, claim they actually did investigative journalism. I don’t know about you, but in my eyes that’s just wrong.
