EMAIL OF THE DAY

“I caught ‘Shattered Glass’ on cable this weekend. It occurred to me that there is no way that any of Glass’s bogus stories could have survived the scrutiny of the blogosphere. All the inconsistencies and non-existent sources would have been discovered in hours.
It’s not an accident that a new online journal broke the story, but it took them a while to nail down the facts, and a dozen counterfiet stories made it through before Glass was discovered. How long would it take now for the blogosphere to discover that there is no “Jukt Micronics Corporation” or that the Omni hotel does not have minibars in its rooms? 30 minutes? An hour, tops?
In the film, Glass speaks of a ‘hole’ in the fact checking system relied upon by traditional media: much of the ‘fact checking’ consists of nothing more than ensuring that the final story is consistent with the reporter’s notes. Well, it seems to me than in the 6 years since Glass was fired from TNR, this hole has been filled by bloggers like you.” Well, I deserve no credit for this (my first hunch was that the Killian memos were probably real), but the point is well taken.