I just had to post this

Avoiding the blogos-fear
By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen (bio)

I confess that I occasionally peek at my newspaper’s blogs.

It’s a pretty scary place.

Reading what some people say in response to various stories and columns is terrifyingly eye-opening.

One need not read many to conclude that a significant percentage of people who are presumably loose on the streets are seriously deficient in some fundamental psychological and intellectual ways.

They often respond to things in ways that have no obvious connection to the subject matter at hand. And when they do respond on topic, they often come up with stuff that is sheer fantasy and present it as fact, and that’s potentially the most deleterious thing about blogging.

Weird, off-the-wall stuff and outright lies just sort of lie there, unchallenged.

People, for whom this forum may be their only exposure to an issue, are in danger of believing something false. And the falsehood could have been posted not just by someone who is misinformed but intentionally by someone with an agenda or unspoken ulterior motive.

While in most cases, running around with false information or a faulty belief system, whether intentionally planted or not, usually is essentially harmless. But history teaches us that there are times when, if enough people begin to believe a vile enough lie, terrible things can happen.

The blogosphere is dangerous that way.

Another way these blogs are dangerous, is that bloggers aren’t saddled with the ethical constraints of journalists, though they often present what they say as fact, and most readers aren’t sophisticated enough about how journalism works, to understand the difference.

There is no oversight in most of these blogs or Web sites and most people are used to believing most of what they read, because since the advent of journalism, most of what’s been written in newspapers has been vetted and is at least most of the time factual. One can disagree with the facts, or with the way they’re presented, but journalists are directed to make sure the stuff they write is proven true or attributed to someone, so readers know there’s a possibility that it’s someone’s opinion. And journalists are forbidden by ethical and professional standards to inject their own personal opinion into news stories.

Not so on Web sites or blogs.

There, anyone can say anything for any reason about anybody.

And then there are the obvious whack jobs – bloggers whose minds are so twisted that the old Doors song – “There’s a killer on the road. His mind is squirming like a toad,” comes to mind.

I don’t know about you, but when I read some of the stuff on these blogs, I start looking at my neighbors differently. I start wondering if the weirdo on the blog is that guy in the supermarket parking lot or in line at the bank.

These crazies were obviously out there before the Internet made it common knowledge, but it wasn’t obvious. So, though we weren’t actually safer then, it felt that way, at least to me.

I think I’m going to stay off the blogs. I can’t handle the stress.

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