Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

This is a public service announcement:

Just because you read it on the Internet doesn't mean it's true.

Just because your sister's husband's friend's cousin forwards an email doesn't mean it's accurate.

Just because someone wrote about it in their blog doesn't mean it's the whole story.

Seriously, people need to read more critically. Check your sources. Do a tiny bit of research. In most case, it only takes a few minutes to confirm the validity of that email from Aunt Martha.

Here, I'll help. This is one good online resource for debunking urban myths: http://www.snopes.com/

There are others.

As a former newspaper reporter, I find myself lamenting what I see as a sad decline in American journalism. In J-school, I was taught that it was the job of the reporter to be accurate, complete and unbiased. I don't see that much anymore.

I could write a whole dissertation on the cause and effect of the decline of those journalistic values. One of the key factors, though, is that the news is increasingly complex and people's attention spans are increasingly short.

And then there is the web. Today, anyone with a modem can publish "news". The end result is that the consumer needs to take more and more personal responsibility for being an informed citizen.

Which is bad. Because so many people are lazy. And it's easier to just take what we are being fed rather than go out and hunt down the truth for ourselves.

It's the web-news phenomenon that concerns me most, I think. All you have to do is Google a few keywords to pull up several "articles" on any hot topic.

The problem is that too many web-surfers just blindly accept the first "news" they find on a subject without even considering the source and it's possible biases. Or worse, they seek out their favorite "news" source - which is a group or organization that shares their own bias and agenda.

I know that it is getting harder and harder to find unbiased news sources. In fact, I find that the "truth" is usually to be found hiding somewhere between the rhetoric on each side.

But I wish more people would TRY to be informed consumers. Be a skeptical reader. Find independent confirmation. Look at more than one side of an issue. Take responsibility rather than just taking as gospel whatever the television - or computer - shows you.

I am so tired of the emails that further urban myths and political propaganda and intentional misinformation. It's sad how many things I've seen just THIS WEEK that were outright lies.

I'm appalled at how many sheeple out there don't even bother to THINK before they just blithely pass things along. If it matches their preconceptions and sounds even remotely plausible, they just hit "forward".

Criminitly, people. Have some pride. If you are going to put your name on something, make sure it's accurate and not just convenient.