Wednesday, January 7, 2009

No shame

Chee Lee Hong posed this question recently:

The problem with the Internet is reliability: To what extent can you trust what you read online? Whether due to ignorance, mischief or sheer absence of quality control, much of what is written online has to be taken with a pinch of salt.


I read the above in amusement because this came from someone who admitted that she never read blogs but labeled blogs as thrash. How would you trust someone who don't listen to both sides of the story to preside over a disagreement?

Whatever it is, I'll answer her accusation. I mean question.

She's right. The Internet is not reliable only if you do not know where to look.
But that is another point totally.

With all the unreliability, the choice is left to the readers to judge for themselves instead of having opinions shoved down our throat because compared to the Straits Times, the Internet gives each individual the chance to voice out his/her opinions. Straits Times reject huge amount of letters to its Forum column daily citing space constraints while unworthy letters were published. Leaving the sieving power to someone in the editing department simply means we put our sole trust in him/her.

So because of that, what if she is asked this instead:

The problem with the Straits Times is reliability: To what extent can you trust what you read on print? Whether due to ignorance, mischief or sheer absence of journalistic quality and integrity, much of what is written on it has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

There. That settles the case.

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