Check it out or copy and paste?

A stupid thread, no one can guarantee all the facts in any story is absolutely true. That cannot be said or determined in any story on the internet or in print. If you want to question a story then do so and bring it up for discussion. Stop nitpicking everything and then exaggerating its importance or impact. Good grief.

 

Know this my beloved brethern, let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to post, and slow to anger.

Posting a story without checking its truth is like gossiping and Christians are strongly encouraged not to gossip.

Each post has your name on it - it sullies your name and your reputation to pass on falsehood.

Rob

 

Interesting..who determines what a reputable source is?


I would contend that what is purposed in the op has never been done in the history of this board. Ever

The standard for all of this is subjective at best. And if you polled the board what you will find is differing views of which sources are reputable. The standard is impossible.

Also what is the method for determining the validity of any story? And how will we know that anything posted has been truly vetted?

 

We can't expect the world to take the Gospel we are telling them seriously if we are telling them half-truths about the news of the world.

Yes, people are responsible. One thing that really bugs me is a sensational thread title and then upon reading the actual news story, there is no such thing contained in the story! I would hope OP's would at LEAST skim the story for content to see if it matches up with the headline. I've called several posters on this practice and the response is "I'm just copying the story, it's not my fault." I would say these people are lazy posters with an agenda.

 

As I said in the thread C4K is speaking of, I compare the story I might want to post to other stories online from other sources. It is a simple thing to do: Just type the basic facts of the story as stated in my intended source into a Google search box, and all the sources for that story come up.

In this day and age of 37-second news cycles, it is possible for a story to appear on only one source for perhaps as long as ten minutes, and not much longer -- if (and that is a very big small word) the source doesn't have a hidden agenda. In that case, you could go days without seeing a story with similar facts, and should that happen, ignore the story.

We can't afford to join the world in its rush to be the firstest, biggest, fastest, strongest, most newsie. We need to take the time to be responsible. It isn't that hard.

 

I have never seen that. But none of that answers my questions.

 

I suppose the reader has to decide for themselves. There are clues to look for.

Any "news" story that has built in links to buy merchandise related to keywords inside the story is disreputable, IMO. So if there is a story on ObamaCare and right in the middle of the story there is a hyperlink to a store where you can buy an Impeach Obama Now! tee-shirt, it's probably not a reputable organization.

 

I was the one who copy and pasted a story that generated this thread. It was about a sinkhole in Louisiana. The article incorrectly said the affected area covered 24 square miles, when it should have said 24 acres.

Now, it was a few days ago, but I think I saw the link for this article on Yahoo News. I often go there and read many articles. I really didn't pay much attention to the article, it was the video of trees being instantly swallowed up I thought folks might be interested in seeing. I copied and pasted the article only to explain what folks were looking at. Again, I paid almost no attention to the article.

Would you consider Yahoo a generally reliable site?

 

I'm pretty sure you're not the one that triggered this thread. In any event one could find a post on BB nearly everyday that contained an iffy news source.

I would say Yahoo is an OK source. I would say they are better than MSN and AOL. Those two outlets are mired in celebrity gossip and fluff pieces.

 

I think we do have an obligation to check things out to a reasonable level, but what is reasonable?

That is different for each person. If I see something on mainstream news, sometimes I will not trust it. If I have knowledge of a certain subject, sometimes I know the information is inaccurate, while others do not. They are not wrong for repeating the source.

Anyone can be wrong. Are we supposed to do our own investigation on each CNN or FOX news story before linking it as accurate? Impossible. How about MSNBC? How about ones that might be less popular but a lot of people trust...even if they aren't always accurate, like Yahoo? I personally would never post anything from WorldNet Daily without a disclaimer, but some people do.

I get very annoyed at people who post stuff as truth that is very easily looked up on Snopes (so and so was kidnapped, when they weren't or they were found ten years ago) but then I look at the person and see they aren't that bright. Sometimes the same person does the same type of posting over and over. But sometimes it just takes me by surprise. Seemingly intelligent people latching onto the most popular gossip out there and linking it as truth when it's just not, or screaming to watch out for this and that because you're gonna die...ROFL Really annoying when they seem so normal otherwise!

I'd say anyone makes mistakes. Forgive them. We've all been the victim of people who don't know what they're talking about. I don't know what I'm talking about half the time but I don't shut up. HA! Can't learn if people don't answer and teach me, right?

It's the ones who constantly do this that we need to worry about. The ones who don't learn and just don't care.

 

In some cases it could, but in my example it's not. The links were to the news websites very own store.

 

And I would say they are all iffy. This whole deal is subjective.

 

Rev, you post a lot of news stories on BB (BTW, thank you for doing that), how do you decide if a source is legit?

 

If it is a primary source like fox, Briebart, newsbusters, or the other mainstream sources.

But if it is not then if a story interests me I want to see one or more of the primary sources posting it.

But when I post things I am not posting them and also saying anything and everything in this post is completely accurate. If someone can find some error in anything I post then good for them.

I do not believe it is possible to vett everything we post as absolutely accurate. Reporters cannot even do that. All this hub bub is not about truth in posts it is about someone nitpicking sources they do not personally like.