Guest Post by Maryan Pelland from Ontext.com
Bad and inaccurate information from websites isn’t new. The Internet can be a fabulous tool, but it should not be the sole source of information for any factual writing from blogs, to research for fiction, to magazine or newspaper articles. Anyone can create a website and fill it with text. There’s never a guarantee that information online is accurate or current. That’s why writers and journalists should not rely on the Internet.
Here’s a dead-on example of what can happen if a writer sucks information out of a website and spits it out as fact, never bothering to make a verification phone call or send an email to a primary source.
Once upon a time, not long ago, a guy with a website thought he’d do something silly to see if media would bite an attractive lure. On an encyclopedic website (yes, that really big one), Shane Fitzgerald of Dublin posted bogus information about a well-known Frenchman, movie music composer, Maurice Jarre.
Fitzgerald made up a deep, thoughtful comment that Jarre might have said about life. Unfortunately for some professional journalists, Jarre never actually uttered the words in questions. They were fiction. Then Jarre died.
How Bloggers and Journalists fell into the ‘net
It seems a couple of journalists needed filler for their pieces about Jarre’s passing. So off they went to you-know-what-ipedia, looked the old fellow up and cut and pasted the pithy comment that Fitz had added to the encyclopedia. Not just blogs, but major newspapers and blogs in the United States, England, and India used the quote in their Jarre obituaries and articles, quoting as though Jarre had actually said the words. Ooops.
As a writer, you must understand primary and secondary sources. A primary source is the clichéd horse’s mouth. It’s the woman who pontificated the idea; the man who discovered the discovery. You’re obligated to find their phone number and dial them up. Or send an email. You ask direct questions and receive direct answers which you can quote, without making any alterations, or you can paraphrase if you indicate the paraphrasing.
A secondary source is not the original. Secondary is a he said or she thought kind of source wherein someone heard, or read, or decided what the original utterance or action was. Secondary is Wikipedia, Suite101.com, Examiner, and so forth. You can see clearly how facts get diluted here, right? Did George Washington cut down the tree he allegedly took out? Nope. He did not. Someone thought it was a cool story, so they told two people and so on.
Must Bloggers Abandon Internet Resources?
If you choose to get your lead from the Internet or you’re surfing for a story idea, fine. Mull over what you uncover online. But before you present a fact as a fact – whether you’re a blogger, a Pulitzer winner, a stringer, a novelist, or a freelancer – your obligation is to verify facts you present as facts. Find the horse and get him to whinny at you. Otherwise, folks, you don’t know he whinnied. Sure, print what you cull from websites, but say, “I culled this from a website.”
Do that, and you can call yourself a professional writer of blogs, stories, articles or columns. Anything less, and you don’t even deserve the pennies per article some writers settle for in today’s markets. And that is, of course, why writers and journalists should not rely on the Internet.
Read more: Why online markets are flooded with wannabes and Free database of medical, legal and academic experts.
Maryan Pelland is a professional freelance writer with a strong web presence at Ontext.com, WomenDaybyDay.com and DemystifyingDigital.com.
I agree with you, Maryan. The Internet is a somewhat unreliable source.
It’s the same as going into a stadium and hearing random shouts people say. While it can eventually lead to a compelling article, it’s not going to necessarily be so accurate.
Great post.
Your right, we should not rely on the internet, internet is only a media, but I think while you are writing this article your mind is not in peace… I knew from reading every word you wrote.
This is great advice, and I try to do this whenever I use external sources for stories in The Casual Observer.
There’s a lot of inaccurate information in the world – there’s a reason why Snopes exists (not that it can refute ALL of the bad information, of course – that would be a huge undertaking!)
When in doubt, do a google search …
Kosmo, I spent all day yesterday searching through the Snopes website. There is so much cool stuff on there.
But back to the topic, I agree that the internet is definitely not a reliable source of information. For that, you could head over to the local library. But, the internet does hold the distinct advantage over reading in that information is instant. I would always back my facts with written publications first, however.
You have to stop all these guest posts Darren. Your website started out great (a long time ago), then it was covered with ads and affiliate programs (scams). But then it got cleaned up and I thought that was a new beginning. Guess not, now all I see is guest posts. Get back in the game, we miss you.
I was under the impression that the quote was added as an experiment by the individual as soon as he heard about the death.
Besides that, I agree but have always been big on internet sources; usually bigger more trustworthy sites than say, a miscellanious blog on blogspot or something.
Let me just add:
I do not mean to offend the guest writers. In fact, sometimes the posts are very informative. But other times, they are just repetitive information and not really needed. Darren Rowse is the author of this website and should be the main contributor with NEW CONTENT.
Mr Impulsive – firstly thanks for your comment.
Secondly – I’ve just taken a look back on my last two months of content here on ProBlogger to see how many guest posts I’ve had published. In the last 100 posts 15 were guest posts. Does that seem too many for you or that I’m ‘out of the game’?
As I looked back on the posts I’ was actually pretty impressed by the quality of them. Many were on topics I’m personally not qualified to write about. In others experiences are shared that I’ve not had personally. I use guest posts to try to add variety of points of view and experiences. I also mainly use them on weekends.
I’ll take what you say on boards but I personally feel I’ve probably had a pretty good balance of late.
Twitter is another way that rumors get spread. In the Dungeons & Dragons crowd, someone tweeted that writer Dave Arneson had died a good 12 hours before he actually DID die and it spread like wildfire over Twitter. I think we all need to remember to take everything on the internet with a healthy spoonful of skepticism.
You make some very good points here. For several blog posts, I wasn’t sure of the information that I found online from a Google search and wanted something more current and reliable before I blogged it.
After checking the organizations’ websites, I still was not sure. I made a few quick phone calls and was able to confirm the information via the actual “horse’s mouth.”
This is less about not trusting the Internet as it is about being careful where you do your research. One of the first things I teach in internet research classes is how to evaluate the validity and slant of information you find on the web. Everyone should understand that sites like Associated Content, Suite101, Ezine Articles and other article submission sites do not fact-check their authors. The best use for sites like those is to get a lead to the original source of the information.
That’s sad. Internet grew so huge that everyone started to depend on it for information.
Valid concerns, to say the least. Without finding the horse, it’s quite difficult to know what’s truth and not. It’s also why a standard in journalism is to get more than one horse, as it were, for verification.
Yet the net isn’t so new in this phenomena. Nor journalism. One of my favorite coffee table books is called “Stupid History” and many of the entries are about “facts” and “quotes” that are incorrect yet carry on and grow popular.
It’s so much more expeditious to jump on the belief bandwagon than it is to dig.
Another example of course is in the SEO industry – as soon as one “guru” comes out with a blog article claiming something, it spreads like wildfire among a vast number of others in our industry who repeat it as fact, sometimes attributing the “fact” to the source and sometimes not.
That dilemma has caused me to spend more time reading Google’s terms of service than I care to think about! :-)
This is a particularly well-written article. Thank you!
In some instances, primary sources ARE on the internet. I’m doing a bit of science related research and, in the field I’m researching, many of the source papers are online. How cool is that?
Hi Darren
nice post I have no words so say.
Regards
Salman
http://www.tips4blogging.co.cc for blogging tips and hacks.
In general, I agree. Primary sources are far better than secondary sources. However, you seem to be making the assumption that primary sources do not exist on the Internet, and that I disagree with–what of .gov and .edu domains? Would you dismiss them as being secondary?
A good follow up to this article would be to post some tips on getting interviews with the ‘horse’s mouth.’ How do you approach someone, is there a standard process? etc.
Yes, only presidents can do that and start massive campaigns in search for WMDs.
Lesson learned, thanks for the reminder, Darren.
This has happened to me a few times now. Doing research about local history sometime, I found a lot of conflicting evidence, which I had gathered from my local library (remember those things!?) Someone above me mentioned “do a google search”. I don’t think this will solve the problem, as the internet can be so viral. That one “fact” that Darren found, could be repeated, copied and posted throughout the net…
Hmm… So the next time I want to visit a new travel place, I shouldn’t entirely depend upon someone’s experience on the blog. A cross-checking of facts will have to be done to confirm the facts as described in the blog. Guess, the internet is a vast pool of data and text. It is the reader’s prerogative to identify with a particular article.
Perhaps it would be better to say that bloggers should not rely on secondary sources. I know this makes for a less sexy title, but anyone who has ever been a part of something covered by a newspaper magazine or on the news knows that these folks get the story wrong a whole lot.
As your story illustrates, a good blog can’t count on wikipedia or the other news sources who picked that story up.
Sorry to be a nit picker, but I feel that bloggers get picked on about misinformation a lot, and while they often deserve the criticism all news sources would do well to check their facts a little closer than they do.
Wonderful article. I liked that this article is based on a case study. But I should verify the source… I do not believe the Fitzgerald story you said…. yet! He he!!
wow… never thought of that…
well… when i can’t say for facts and reliability. but when i find a new online shop, i merely google that shop url +scam
for example the online shop is abc.com
i google “abc.com +scam”
from there, i might get a hint if that shop is it a scam or reliable.
maybe we can try something like that to found out is the sources are fact or fiction?
cheers!
The Internet should be just one of many resources for information.
But information from any source should not be readily accepted as fact. The Internet is not the problem here.
The major newspapers that quoted the fake quotation should have double checked the source, yes. But that is not the Internet’s fault. This just happened to be one case where we knew the validity of the quotation. What about the countless other times where we don’t know? Where the source of incorrect information is not the Internet?
This is not about writers and bloggers or about the Internet as a source. This is about the reliability of information, no matter who distributes it, and no matter what the source is.
An excellent cautionary reminder about internet sources. I’m curious why we all are so accepting of everything that we read on the internet. This is also a good reminder to get past the “packaging”. It is so easy these days to have a professional, polished looking site that just spouts nonsense.
I like the more subtle, secondary reminder in this post not only to find sources, but to cite those sources. “… print what you cull from websites, but say, I culled this from a website.” The words and ideas that we find on websites (or blogs) belong to someone. If we’re going to use them, we need to credit that person. The sharing of ideas is one of the most exciting things about the internet, the stealing of ideas is not.
Thanks for these great reminders.
That’s why as a blogger we need to do a research before posting about something especially related to facts. But still internet is the best resource for bloggers..
The internet has made the world completely accessible to all and there are no barriers to expression…it promotes expression, not necessarily truth.
I really appreciate all the comments you readers have posted about my guest piece for Darren. This is a quality blog with very thoughtful readers. I’m enjoying getting different points of view! Thanks.
mkp
http://ontext.com
Great Advice Maryan,
If I find something new or contradictory to what I feel is right, I try to do more research. Since sometimes it happens just as you said where others just pick up the mis info & run with it, it can get frustrating.
I do have certain people that I will ask, visit their blog, or watch for their recommendation as a source. These are people that I trust in a particular field. I don’t trust their info because they have a huge name or even because they have written a book. I trust them because I have followed them, tried their suggestions & feel as if they are worthy of listening to.
My problem is that I tend to research so much that it becomes old news before I ever feel good enough to post about it myself.
I look forward to seeing you again as a guest poster!
The Internet is not completely evil, like all things, take a second opinion and the beauty of the internet is that you can take lots and lots of opinions. Of course, we should always take things with a grain of salt, and when in doubt, well, try wiki……
What’s really sad is how students now cite wikipedia and use it as their main source for writing reports and papers.
Interesting…reminds me of doing uni assignments the old way with library books! Anyone remember the feeling of reading books and writing up a report in your own words.
Nice troll by that whoever-he-was guy.
I don’t mean to be overly rude, but this is complete bollocks, and unjust internet bashing.
The problem you describe is one of verifying facts, not one of not being able to trust the internet. What you describe holds true just as much as for information obtained outside of the internet as it does for information found on the internet.
You’ve also twisted the Maurice Jarre story with incorrect facts (perhaps you to should have verified your facts…because it’s clear you haven’t.)
Shane Fitzgerald DID NOT post false quotes before Jarre died: he actually posted a false quote after he died, with the express intent of setting a classic honey trap: seeing how many people used the quote from the Wikipedia entry without verifying it. The intentional trap obviously did work. But the exercise did not prove that you should confirm facts offline because the internet can’t be trusted: it proved that you should verify facts full stop, nothing more, nothing less.
This quote could have been verified online through other sources or sites that specialize in quotations for example.
What I find even more strange is that you then suggest that a writer should know the difference between a primary and secondary source, and confirm with the primary…can you speak to the dead, because I’m not sure many people reading this can…and Jarre was dead.
The idea that facts can only be verified with the source is also patently false and impractical, not only when it comes to the dead. To suggest that somehow not confirming with a direct source makes you worth less than pennies per article…well, I can’t write my response here because Darren wouldn’t like the language.
What I would say though is that your attitude once again shows why old school journalists are a dying bread.
I think you may have confused bloggers with journalists.
Reminds me of when Apple stock plummeted after someone wrote that Steve Jobs had a heart attack, or the time when millions of people bought into the idea of the “-Mac-book-wheel.”
While the internet is a great tool, many often forget to use their much needed logic.
This so true. A lot of what you read online is opinion not fact.
You can also verify facts by cross checking them with multiple authority websites via google search. Pretty funny story about everyone reporting bogus info when that guy died, o world.
The Internet should be just one of many resources for information.
Work from home
@ Darren – Though I will say that the quality and organization of information in your posts is much better than guest posts, I love hearing different points of view.
For ex., this post today highlights a serious problem with the internet and sources, and how people choose what to present as fact.
@Maryan – Good post. I think the problem is when people trust any form of media unconditionally. Any blogger who trusted newspapers would have been fooled as well. People need to develop their skepticism, and literacy about who says something and why.
A lot to say on this topic. I’ll close by saying for my blog, if we need a “fact” we only trust major news outlets, and if we use wikipedia its fact must be verified.
LOL I got in a fight with my college professor about this topic. He said what you did that nothing on the internet can be considered fact. It is ok to pick up a book and claim it is fact or newspaper, but nothing online. I really think you are right not to trust any wiki since they are so easily edited by authors that should not speak. I do have to argue the fact that there is factual information online if you know where to look. Personally I find http://www.britannica.com/, http://www.library.hbs.edu/working_papers.html (Baker Library), actually if you go to google.com click the more button at the top of the screen then click scholar search you will find a great resource from colleges across the country which will be much more factual then any newspaper and in most cases library books since the information in those are usually outdated. So rather than saying that any resource online is not factual perhaps you should edit your concept to permit online resources that are highly accredited. Anyway just my thought and though I think I have a good argument I still got a B on my term paper:)
Isn’t this true of any resource, whether it is a book, newspaper or wiki? I think people are just realising that perhaps they shouldn’t trust everything they read. As a science graduate this was drummed into me very early on! At least with wikipedia there is a good system for logging references.
All you have to do is go and check them! You can’t do that with a newspaper article.
Duncan, surely your points just prove the main ethos of the article?
Kristin
the VERY title of the article suggests that the internet should not be trusted, not that facts should be verified, so no, I don’t think my points do. The author has been blinded by an old school hatred of the internet which is neither just, nor really becoming of the topic. Strip out the internet hate, and you have a reasonable discussion about double checking things…but only then. Ironically of course, she herself hasn’t gotten facts straight…. if you’re referring to that Kristian, then we agree :-)
Yea, that was pretty much my point :)
This is another point that distinguishes bloggers from professional writers and journalists. Though both good meaning ones try their hardest to adhere to the highest standards of journalism.
To be a reliable writers and bloggers, I think we should be resourceful enough and make sure to verify the truthfulness of the information gathered before publishing especially if it is from the internet.
Well said, Maryan. I like Dan Miranda’s comparison as well. We all know this stuff, but we still see professionals and newbs alike getting caught trusting sources they really should have confirmed. Unfortunately, while the Internet makes it easier to do this, it has been happening for far longer than the Net has been around. Someday we’ll all learn. Someday…