Doing so usually results in sloppy, poorly executed work that leaves outsiders scratching their heads in confusion over the meaning of the message. A good editor challenges the writer to bring clarity to the text. If the subject is news or information, the editor forces the writer to offer documentation and a solid foundation for the story being told. Many Internet journalists and webcasters, they say, ramble on endlessly with drivel and rumors that they have made no effort to verify. Because of this increasing dissemination of bad information, a broad brush of distrust, they say, is tainting the credibility of the entire Internet.
Somebody has to go get it.
If you're lucky, it's somebody who knows what they are doing. That doesn't amount to very much. The fact that the Internet has no gatekeeper does not mean content producers should eliminate the function of the editor, says Sander Vanocur, a veteran print and broadcast correspondent who is now an anchor on the History Channel. It was a cruel and hard apprenticeship. But this apprenticeship instilled in us a sense of what you could put in and what you should leave out, what was right and what was wrong.