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E-conomy / Paul Andrews
Finding both sides on the Web

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Don't believe anything you see on the Internet, the financial expert retorted. You can't tell what's really true. That sentiment, long propagated by the information gatekeepers of established news media, is getting a bit worn around the edges. If the CBS debacle proved anything, it's that no "respected" or "trusted" medium in our society is in a position to call the Internet kettle black.

In fact, a case can be made that the Internet in general — and Web loggers in particular — represent the new Truth Police in an era of increasingly elusive verity.

Bloggers were the first to jump on red flags pointing to possible fakery in the CBS memos. Their alerts led document experts to look into the matter and other news outlets to investigate.

The Internet's archiving, indexing and search capabilities have been used in numerous cases to detect sloppy reporting or plagiarism. Mailing lists, instant messaging and newsgroups constitute a growing wealth of information and research.

Perhaps most significant, the Internet has shown itself to be a strong self-correcting mechanism. Yes, there's a lot of hooey out there. But it gets "outed" pretty quickly, and any diligent Internet user can generally find out the real truth simply by burrowing further into the Web itself.

All of this represents a huge shift in the way information works in American culture.

When the Web first began making waves a decade ago, I thought as a journalist that the media establishment's efforts to ensure truth would be all the more affirmed. I never suspected that instead the media might become "infected" with "Internet-itis" — cut-and-paste journalism where any substantiation will do as long as it fits the agenda.

It's possible to argue that news media have always played fast and loose with factuality. I don't believe that. Instead, competitive pressures to get a scoop before it hits the Internet have pushed reporters to take shortcuts and, in some instances, deliberately fabricate.

By the same token, past errors and distortions never faced the potential for exposure that they do today. One medium seldom challenged what the other published or broadcast. Questions or doubts from credible sources had little outlet for wider dissemination.

The Internet has changed the whole dynamic. E-mail lists, Web-site postings, instant messaging, blogs and other mechanisms can create a virtual firestorm in a matter of hours.
 
In the same way the Net has "deconstructed" other professions, including stock brokering, car sales and travel agencies, it is breaking down the media's ivory tower. Today there is just as much, if not more, need for the authenticating role media have always played. But that authentication has to adapt to and draw on the power of the Internet as well as rely on its own resources.

"Any business with a strong information component is being transformed," said Al Erisman, co-director of the Institute for Business, Technology and Ethics in Bellevue. A former Boeing information manager, Erisman regularly wrestles with the social implications of technology in a column he writes for the institute's magazine, Ethix.

The same microcomputer capabilities that permitted the realistic look and feel of the bogus memos, Erisman noted, also provided the means to detect and expose the fabrication.

"People think of technology as neutral — not playing on either side," he said. "Actually it's ambivalent. It plays on both sides."

It's a lesson CBS and Dan Rather might keep in mind as they presumably try to determine how they were bamboozled. The tool that brought them down ultimately could prove useful in leading them to vindication.

Paul Andrews is a freelance technology writer and co-author of "Gates." He can be reached at pandrews@seattletimes.com.