Monthly Archives: August 2003

Check the Facts

This entry was posted in Blogging on by

Eugene Volokh gives us this model of blogger fact checking:

1. Blog reader alerts blogger to possible problem.
2. Blogger posts about it, with some tentative speculation.
3. Another blog reader checks the facts (I hadn’t known that there was an audio of Justice Moore’s remarks available, but the reader did know) and lets blogger know.
4. Blogger rechecks the facts to satisfy himself (and preserve his own credibility, since he’s about to say something pretty definitive).
5. Blogger posts the proof of the error.
And all this happened within a couple of hours, starting only hours after the story was posted. Of course, it would be better still if this were followed by (6) the media outlet corrects the error (prompted partly by the blogger’s e-mail). We’ll see whether that happens, though I’m not holding my breath . . . .

I think we will see number 6 but that it will be an evolutionary process. What may happen sooner is that ‘big media’ will improve their own fact checking to save regular embarrassment.

View from the bush

This entry was posted in Economics on by

Yep, I feel better now that bush has kind of told us all will be well:

“We’re upbeat about the chances for our fellow citizens who are looking for work to be able to find a job,” Bush said. “I firmly believe that what we have done was the absolute right course of action in order to help people find a job.”

I’m not so sure the folks who held those 2.6 million jobs that have evaporated feel the same. Maybe, though, they can move to India.

Full Disclosure

This entry was posted in bush dean Election 2004 on by

I agree 100% with this guy’s request:

“If Howard Dean plans to run on his record in Vermont, he needs to share that record with the public,” Vermont Republican Chairman Jim Barnett (search) said. “The American people should not just have to take his word for it.”

And, I’m sure he will apply the same requirement to the sitting president.