The mainstream media has become all but useless, while the net is definatley chock a block full of wackos, its also full of people of reporters not constrained by corporate interess.

For those of you who are interested in some alternative news you won't see on channel 9 have a look here;

www.911truth.org
www.st911.org

and in the interests of balance;

www.911myths.com - these guys are dedicated to proving the conspiracy wackjobs wrong, might interest you redneck.

That people continue to believe the WMD story regardless probably has as much to do with why people access particular news sources as what sources they choose. Same goes for flat earthers and intelligent design enthusiasts - if they do consider evidence against their beliefs it's less because they want to be informed and more because they're looking for chinks in the armour of the opposition.

The forums on OLO provide ample evidence for this, when the number of comments on an article goes through the roof when it's about something more emotive than rational, and people turn to some very strange sources for evidence to back up their truth claims.

It's no different where mainstream news is concerned when people pay more attention to op-ed columns than to the news.

"It's enough to make you feel queasy. A recent Harris poll found that half the American public - up from 36 per cent last year - believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the time of the US invasion. This despite the fact that the final report of the Iraq Survey Group - experts handpicked by the CIA and Pentagon - concluded that Iraq had no deployable chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in 2003, and had not produced any since 1991"

I couldn't agree more that these findings are very sad. But I wouldn't be blaming the unreliability of the internet - what I would be more concerned about would be the mainstream reporting of US government statements simply as fact, without touching on any of the obvious elements of bias that accompanied these statements.

I'm kind of amused by the idea that the mainstream media can be regarded as exercising quality control over the accuracy of their stories. I've been close to a number of minor stories and have yet to see one where the main facts were reasonably represented in the media coverage which occurred. Not as close to any big stories but close enough to be fairly confident that the handling of those is no better.

R0bert

I do not know the figures for information obtained from the media versus the internet but I think they would show the media as a larger source than the Internet. If correct this makes criticism of the internet for belief incorrect. That the media is biased to wards its own commercial needs rather than its role in providing accurate and as complete as possible information thus favouring popular opinion, patriotic opinion in the case of a war situation, has I think been demonstrated.
This is not to deny the main thrust of this article for the net is indeed an object of danger to informed opinion, the onus is on the user, his education and intelligence. There is a move to curtail the chaos of the net by bringing it intor corporate control just like the rest of the media. I hope this article recognises this.
True distortion untruths emotional idiocy is as much a part of the net as the media but the breadth of the net is such that if time is spent in chasing data cross checking criticising a closer to the facts can be found.
I am sure I am not the only one who turned to the net in 2001/02 seeking facts on Iraq (Iran, Israel Tom Cobbly and all) and found that it seemed the whole pitch (the major media sources quoting Government data uncritically) was a confidence trick. A lie. That in some countries at least the ‘trusted leaders’ had lied distorted data in favour of their own ends (maybe national interest maybe easier electoral run) when it should have been in favour of an informed electorate that could tell its representatives how to act.
I am sure that once the troops were committed disagreement was more difficult because the thought of troops being in danger restrained opinion. Still Australia from Sept 11 2001 had committed herself to America and the data was adjusted accordingly, not excused by the Flood report. Such good and evil dichotomies still exist spread by the corporate media.

An interesting implication of this is the possible collapse of the west??

Firstly, have you noticed how poor countries get smaller and wealthy ones get bigger? The third world is full of one independance movement after another. Yet Europe is now much closer to being a single country than ever before... Why?

One factor is the huge body of shared cultural infastructure... Europeans have interconnected railways, shared (or wire) content in TV news and current affairs, they all watch a reasonable amount of hollywood and have the same multinational companies producing and marketing the same goods.

Why third world nations tend to be torn by civil strife is that they don't have this shared infastructure, and consequently the guys in the next village and on the other side of the country have nothing in common with each other.

If the web breaks down our shared cultural values into factions who don't talk to each other... how long can western nations continue to hold, well, 'western' values?

I don't have clearly formed views on this, but it is an interesting idea...

There’s a lot to be bothered about in this article.

First, there’s a failure to distinguish between what happens in the main content of most opinion sites, and what readers dish up in the comments. Let’s assume for a moment that OLO is the “one Australian opinion site” being discussed here. We get five doses a day of truly varied comment, covering just about every imaginable topic from a wide range of perspectives. Even broader is possible, of course (some articles in Urdu, perhaps?), but I reckon the internet serves us very well in this particular case.

Of course the comments are often ignorant, self-serving or just plain loony, but there’s usually some evidence of an intelligent readership among them too. When reading outside one’s area of expertise, there’s often stuff among the comments which challenges or informs views already held.

Second, generally the mainstream media claim to be presenting factual information, so they have an obligation to check their facts. Yet as we all know, they regularly fail to do so. Opinion sites generally don’t claim to be presenting the truth, so the obligation to check facts rests with the reader. Where is the problem in this? I hope Charles Duelfer went on to explain exactly what’s wrong with challenging commonly agreed facts.

Yes, we all read through the filter of our own pre-conceptions, and possibly many of us are unable to distinguish fact from opinion. However I think it’s a bit rich to argue that A: many Americans believe untrue information and B: many internet information sources are inaccurate therefore C: the internet is dangerous.

It’s speculation, of course, but I’ll bet that more of those Americans who believe in Iraqi WMDs got their information from “fact-checked” mainstream media than from online opinion sites. The answer is to help people to think critically about what they read, not to regulate it.

The Wikipedia’s authority lies in its lack of a claim to authority http://www.reason.com/links/links081506.shtml The long-term effect of the internet may be that we question everything, which can’t be so bad.

Dan Rather's Fake Memos
Reuters Doctored Lebanon Photos
Terry Lane publishing lies in The Age.

There's your reliable mainstream media for you.

All of these deliberate lies by mainstream media sources were exposed by Internet opinion writers.

This article is just a pathetic attempt by a media organisation with falling market share to pretend they are still relevant. And The Age is by far the most unreliable media source in Australia.

Terry Lane not sacked? What does he have to do, shoot a baby in the face?

"This Is The Internet. We can fact-check your ass".

Ken Layne, 2001.

You guys probably still haven't heard that quote, you are so far out of touch.

Somewhere in sleazy downtown Sydney, two unwashed, filthy bloggers in pyjamas chat while dunking hotdogs in their coffee at lunchtime...

"Hey Maximus."

Yeah what?

"There's some woman on OLO saying there's a band of "forum participants" getting around, sort of like gang-cyber-stalkers, I guess, roaming around female-authored articles, taking the P out of them."

Is that right?

"Yeah, and she says that they've got gladiatorial sounding names. Have you ever heard of these guys?"

No.

"And she reckons they've got anger management and comprehension issues."

'Struth! We'll keep a good lookout for them - we wouldn't want them coming around to our site. It's a good thing we took down that forum section.

"Yeah. I reckon."

That's the problem with the Internet. It gives little people too much voice. There's far too much freedom of expression these days. It's getting so a bloke can't spin lies and get away with it anymore. I reckon this woman's right. Spin and lies, erroneous research, advocacy propaganda, all these things should be strictly controlled and remain the domain of the elite - the journos, academics, spin doctors and the like. Imagine the chaos in society if people ever started to work out the truth. Just imagine. It'd be shocking. This woman's completely correct. What's her name? What does she do?

Had to think of you, Maximus, when I was watching this video blog: http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/08/082306.html

[on an airplane] “Although reclining your seat is technically your right, just like free speech, if you exercise it to your limits, everyone around you will think you’re an asshole.”

Hello w.

Sometimes a man has to be an asshole. It's not necessarily what he wants to be, but it's something sometimes he has to be - so his stink gets up the noses of those who deserve it. Getting up the right noses is something a good mate of mine - Miranda Devine - taught me and expressed pleasure in so doing. I respect the woman. She's my kind of woman. Strong, personal and very independent. The sort of woman a man can respect.

If in the meantime, sad little lowercase w, my "asshole" gets up your nostrils, trust me, the pleasure is all mine. I grin from ear to ear with delight.

And to you Mr Yobbo, respect! Good fortunes in your endeavours.

What absolute dribble!

The only redeeming feature of Ms Canold is that she is at least consistent in supporting the media bias and social engineering so typical of the fourth estate and the spin industry that rewards her handsomely.

Probably the silliest article I have read on OLO for some time.