Librarians project - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Invasion of librarians spawns new WikiProject:
Amid considerable debate among librarians about their experiences with Wikipedia, a new WikiProject to coordinate their efforts as Wikipedia contributors started last week. The project attracted additional discussion and a significant number of participants have already joined in.

The immediate impetus for the debate came from librarian-blogger Jenny Levine, who related her negative experience in trying to add an external link to a Wikipedia article about The Da Vinci Code, one that would allow readers to find libraries with a copy of the book. Comments on the subject spread to other blogs and mailing lists, and eventually a WikiProject for librarians was started by Peter Binkley last Monday.

In addition, Jeff Pomerantz, a library science professor at the University of North Carolina, had earlier posted some reflections on a presentation held at the school about Wikipedia. Pomerantz said the presentation changed his thinking on the subject when he realized that collaborative editing fundamentally resembles the academic peer review process. Observing that people will undoubtedly continue using Wikipedia, sometimes naively unaware of issues about its accuracy, he concluded that librarians have a 'professional responsibility to make Wikipedia a reliable information source.'

Greg Palast: Washington Post Still Sucks

Deep Throat Cover Blown
Washington Post Still Sucks:
Newspapers are part of the power elite and have never in US history gone out of their way to rock the clubhouse. Let's go back to Hersh's stellar story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

[omitted but worth reading]...

The Washington Post has no monopoly on journalistic evil. If anything, the Post is probably better than most of the bilge contaminating our news outlets. This is about the death-march of investigative journalism in America; or, at least, its dearth under the 'mainstream' mastheads.

Why don't we read more 'Watergate' investigative stories in the US press? Given that the Woodwards of today dance on their hind legs begging officialdom for 'access', news without official blessing doesn't stand a chance.

The Post follows current American news industry practice of killing any story based on evidence from a confidential source if a government honcho privately denies it. A flat-out 'we didn't do it' is enough to kill an investigation in its cradle. And by that rule, there is no chance that the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, would today run Deep Throat's story of the Watergate break-in.

Journalism in the United States

Cowardice in Journalism Award for Newsweek
Every time I say investigative reporting is dead or barely breathing in the USA, some little smartass will challenge me, "What about Watergate? Huh?" Hey, buddy, the Watergate investigation was 32 years ago -- that means it's been nearly a third of a century since the Washington Post has printed a big investigative scoop.
...
A few years ago, while I was tracking the influence of the power industry on Washington, Isikoff gave me some hard, hot stuff on Bill Clinton -- not the cheap intern-under-the-desk gossip -- but an FBI report for me to publish in The Guardian in England.

I asked Isikoff why he didn't put it in Newsweek or in the Post.

He said, when it comes to issues of substance, "No one gives a sh--" -- not the readers, and especially not the editors who assume that their US target audience is small-minded, ignorant and wants to stay that way.

That doesn't leave a lot of time, money or courage for real reporting. And woe to those who practice real journalism. As with CBS's retraction of Dan Rather's report on Bush's draft-dodging, Newsweek's diving to the mat on Guantanamo acts as a warning to all journalists who step out of line.

Newsweek has now publicly committed to having its reports vetted by Rumsfeld's Defense Department before publication. Why not just print Rumsfeld's press releases and eliminate the middleman, the reporter?

Hat tip to Zataod at Zendreaming for pointing me there.