If Your Mother Blogs That She Loves You…
I’ve been meaning to write a follow-up to a post I published here last month titled, “Do Journalistic Rules Apply to Blogging?” Certain emails that have been forwarded recently to me have prompted this follow-up post.
Blogs are exciting, in part, because they allow information to flow more quickly through channels that have circumvented and, in some cases replaced, bureaucratic review processes. On the down side, they allow information to receive widespread viewing without the benefit, in some cases, of fact-checking and vetting of ideas. That was the point that I meant to make in my follow-up blog post. One “rule” of journalism can easily be forgotten by bloggers–corroborate information obtained through sources.
In my first college journalism course, I heard the adage, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” The wisdom of confirming information–even from seemingly “reliable sources”–was shown to me many times. Even the best-intentioned source could misstate some “fact” or misinterpret someone else’s comment when relaying it to me.
Truth be told, I’ve caught myself being lazy a few times by posting information without checking a second or third source. My laziness bothered me when information I posted was picked up by someone I respected and posted on his site. The information, I still believe, was totally accurate–I just didn’t like the questions in my own head about relying on a single source.
Over the past week, I’ve received forwarded emails from people who are passing along a funny video clip. The problem to me is that they haven’t verified the source of the clip, which I believe has been intentionally altered and redistributed electronically. But my “sources” didn’t know that–and probably didn’t care.
I first saw the clip in a presentation at the 2005 IABC International Conference in Washington. Russell Grossman of the BBC used it at the start of his presentation that focused on a surprise announcement that shook the BBC. The clip woke up the audience (me included)! I asked Russell to send me the clip, and I asked a German-speaking coworker to translate the German language at the end of the commercial.
It was created for K-fee, a German-based manufacturer of an “energy drink.” Turns out that K-fee has specialized in offering fun commercials that get your heart pumping. The text in this particular ad translated as, “You’ve never been so awake” and “Caffeine in high doses.”
I put the ad out of my mind until this past week. Probably because the character in the K-fee commercial works well with thoughts of Halloween, people are sending the clip to their friends. The original text has been changed, however. The wording on the versions I received stated, “Now change your shorts and get back to work.”
Kind of funny; but kind of sad, that people are passing along a pirated and altered copy of someone’s intellectual property without a thought regarding the source of the information. How many times are people doing that with “facts” published on someone’s blog?