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  1. Interesting about the problem with identifying the truth in the fast paced world of internet news and aggregators. I just read an article about how someone put PhD after their name and wrote an article claiming that eating a chocolate bar daily was good for your health. He made the whole thing up to see how many news sources would publish it unchecked. He was horrified how many news agencies published it without question. Pretty soon it is all going to be a wiki news world. Dangerous.

  2. It’s definitely something touched on in this episode. There’s definitely a worry about this. Thing is there are actually some good sources factchecking this kind of thing, one of the best of which is retractionwatch.com, which actually reviews not just the media behind these scientific proclamations, but also the institutions and scientific journals that get this information before the media. Jeff Jarvis would likely cite this as an example of what should be done to counter misinformation. The question is, how many people will actually have and take the time to check the source of the source of piece of information. Still, it’s also important to keep in mind that the history of U.S. journalism back to the beginning of “dead tree” editions is one of truth, lies and rumors.

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