The Iron Yuppie

Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran: "Millions of Iranians expressed their satisfaction on the outcome of the US Presidential elections and George W. Bush's victory by calling and congratulating each other. Many were seen walking in the streets and shaking each others hands or showing a discret V sign."

This is actually one of my biggest problems with bloggers. I saw this story linked to on three blogs. The blogs touted this as evidence of Bush being the right person elected. Yet I have absolutely no idea who this group is (the SMCCDI), their background, their affiliation, etc outside of what is listed on the web. Simply reporting a story which exists in the ether is not journalism!

Allow me to demonstrate:

The oil companies today vowed to outlaw all environmental policies in order to ease their drilling in formerly wildlife protected areas. When asked if this would negatively affect generations to come, a representative replied, “We have access to all your computers and will delete your hard drives if you do not allow us to do what we want. See!” (Note, only works on a PC)

There you go, a brand new quote from the oil company representative. Is it real? Of course not. Do you know anything about me or my rationale for saying this? Nope. Could you link to it and claim x or y or z? Sure, but that’s not journalism! I’m not saying journalists cannot be bloggers, but journalism is more than just a link and a comment (it goes without saying that I am not a journalist either… does this mean you should not believe what I say? Probably.)