The Difference Between Crediting and Linking

As I watched Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos, on MSNBC talking about Maureen Dow's recent plagiarism, it reminding me of something my father and I were talking about recently. I have been itching to write something on the death of newspapers, as I believe they are dying. We are watching them die. They are dying for one reason, and one reason only, the newspaper is an outdated method of bringing information to an individual. To many, this seems as natural as the death of the typewriter after the development of computers. Yet to many others, this is equivalent to the death of investigative journalism.

That is what they tell us. They tell us that only in a newspaper do we receive quality, local, investigative journalism. And somehow, this has become an accepted truth. Maybe it is just the MSM standing up for other MSM, but we should not blindly accept this assumption. We should not assume that it is improbable, let alone impossible, that television, radio, and, gasp, web journalists can provide quality investigative journalism. The acceptance of this assumption is a statement about our society, that we are resigned to a main stream media that brings us gossip instead of news. What I wonder about all these people that feel we need to stand up and save the newspapers to save investigative journalism is; what have you done to demand good journalism from television, radio, and web journalist?

My father and I were talking about this and he related this story to me. 'Me and my golf buddies were talking about the newspapers. They brought up that argument, and I said to them, that's crap. When you read a newspaper you get one source, when I go online for news I have infinite sources.' This topic of sources is so vitally important, and relevant to the Dowd controversy. As Markos stated, bloggers are incredibly stringent on sourcing. When we read blogs with quotes and no links, we immediately take a step back. We demand links. We demand sources.

Something Markos did not talk about, however, is the difference between crediting, or sourcing, and linking. When you read a newspaper, they may quote a United Nations resolution, and credit it appropriately. You can, later, dig up that source to see for yourself. On a blog, on the other hand, you do not just get a source name, you get a link. You can, right then and there, open that source and see it for yourself. What that allows us to do, is find out whether or not the author is taking something out of context.

As a young person, I can tell you that my generation has grown up skeptical of everyone and everything. My father used to tell me how surprised they were to find that they had been lied to about Vietnam. My generation is never surprised when we are lied to. That is status quo for us. My generation, coincidentally, is also reading newspapers less than all older age groups. I do not think our skepticism is why we do not read newspapers. We do not read them because, as I stated previously, a newspaper is an outdated method for receiving information. However, newspapers are not capable of fulfilling what we look for, in some part, because of our skepticism.

Our skepticism, however, makes us perfect for blogs and website journalists. With linking, instead of merely crediting, our skepticism has somewhere to go. And linking, is something that newspapers will never be able to do. When the NYTimes newspaper quotes a source to me, they will never be able to deliver, right then and there, the entire source for me to see myself. Maybe you do not see the importance of linking as I do. Maybe you are more trusting then I am. I find, however, that on both sides of the isle, taking quotes out of context is status quo. Chery picking quotes is status quo. Sourcing does little to help, but linking may be the key. If you know that your readers can instantly see the source you are quoting, you are more likely to take the extra effort to make sure your quote is ethical.