If It's On the Internet, It Must Be True

If there is one thing that hours of surfing the Internet for news and non-fiction pieces has taught me, it's to not trust the Internet. Too often I've been fooled by quick Twitter or Google news headlines, reading only the breaking news and not following up on my information. One of the major problems with credibility is the rapidness with which news is shared. Before, even breaking news had time to be fact checked. Now anyone with a phone can alert the world to events, even if their view is slightly (or completely) skewed.

The most obvious perpetrator of this is Twitter. Just days ago, NBC's twitter feed was hacked, and the hackers tweeted that a flight crashed into the Ground Zero site. Thousands of people tweeted about the incident before the hack was found out and corrected. The abruptness of which people can see news makes the credibility of the source that much more important, and if a relatively well-respected news outlet like NBC can be hacked, than how can we really trust ANY breaking news pieces?

Of course, I think that the subject and target audience of the website is also vitally important. For instance, political bias will definitely influence credibility. Now, I'm not usually one to jump down Fox New's throat (because there are definitely liberal leaning news sources who's credibility are just as iffy), but this article about President Obama's birthday party this past August is just a little ridiculous. Any news outlet with a political bias (regardless of party) will be somewhat harder to trust. Personally, I prefer reading about American politics on foreign sources first, like the Independent or BBC so I know the facts, and then go back and read domestic reports.

Another example is sites that are primarily for gossip or entertainment news, like Perez Hilton or TMZ. Sites like these aren't exactly hard-hitting news outlets, but they have huge readerships, and the fact that they can hardly be considered credible is concerning. Just because your website is more of a "fluff" site doesn't mean that your work shouldn't be credible. I think sites like New York Magazine online do a better job of reporting entertainment news.