Quote:
Originally Posted by Matty81
I agree that newspapers as a business model are done for but relying on reddit for journalism is scary. You are taking in a lot of unsubstantiated bull#### on there, and rarely are you seeing both sides of a story which a professional journalist has an onus to do. Most of the time you're not even fully getting one side of a story, who is going to answer an e-mail or phone call from a redditer and comment on a story?
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That's only a problem if you believe everything that you read. The people who cry foul about Wikipedia's accuracy are the kind of people who lack the ability to understand how to separate BS from truth or check the clearly marked references to validate the information prior to digestion. There are nuances and biases to every piece of information you come across. One good thing about internet forums is that even if you have a hack come along posting something widely inaccurate, that people will come along to either point out the errors or slowly add more nuance and push the information back in the right direction. Everybody who reads it is free to comment, correct and expand the topic. You take all the knowledge and generate your own understanding of things, not simply consume and digest original stream of information.
I would rather have a wide breadth of information, collaborated on and contributed from a million expert users than something a minimum wage journalism major writes which was then processed through an editor in a tweed suit and then permanently printed onto a piece of newsprint to be flushed down the toilet. The resulting CP thread about clogged office toilets was likely more informative and compelling than the original content was.