One good tool for looking at the press recently arrived Brill s Content. This publication focuses entirely on judging the press. If it doesn t find mistakes and bad habits, it goes out of business. They have a high motivation to criticize carefully. I ve subscribed.
Ignorance remains a more dangerous foe than villainy, in the long run.
Fortunately, I still think of myself as a searcher and information professional first. I expect to do research. I use the classic searcher s approach and then add journalistic research techniques on top. When you look at sources, you must also ask yourself how well the writer or sources know the field, what kind of access they have, what turn-around times drove the piece, what constraints, e.g., on length, the material operated under, and how all these kinds of factors could affect the truth in the work. One marvelous aspect of the new Web world of information is its ability to let us look over the writer s shoulder at the sources they used.