Via Jeff Jarvis, I ran across this from Tim Berners-Lee:

Sir Tim believes devotees of blogging sites take too much information on trust: “The blogging world works by people reading blogs and linking to them. You’re taking suggestions of what you read from people you trust. That, if you like, is a very simple system, but in fact the technology must help us express much more complicated feelings about who we’ll trust with what.” The next generation of the internet needs to be able to reassure users that they can establish the original source of the information they digest.

How is that different than traditional media? I read a story in the NY Times, where the major source is some wire service. Other than age, what tells me I should trust that wire service? Especially given all the recent stories about photoshopping and staged photos?

With the net, there's some possibility of fact checking. With the old model, there was the "letter to the editor" that found the circular file. With all due respect to Berners-Lee, I'll take the new model, thanks.

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