Fact Flaming

I noticed it on Amy Wohl's blog when she asked, "how bloggers blog?," saw it with Scoble, and then Gruber's dismantling of Doctorow's, "paranoid diatribe" on DRM. I don't care about Apple on Intel and whether or not it's locked down with a chip. I do care about trusting whom I read, who to believe, and who's telling me the truth. In the blogosphere of fact-checkers, I suppose that's all going to balance itself out, but should I believe Scoble, the guy fact-flaming him, Gruber or Doctorow?

And then Peter Jennings dies. I posted about that, the end of the Age of the Anchorman (can't say that without chucking about Ron Burgundy), and how I trusted Mr. Jennings. Should I trust a blog like Vespaway that's coming right out of a PR Firm and everything bloggers say? The ascension of bloggers into the mainstream is a direct result of them fact-checking the media, but who's fact-checking them? Right, right, other bloggers, but with the blogosphere growing exponentially, and at some point reaching saturation, how do we stay on top of whether or not Windows Vista will ship with a product that's already been cracked? Or if there's really a conspiracy at 37signals to pull controversial posts, or if any of the spy shots on Engadget are real, or if Apple plants rumors.

Regarding facts and blogs, Amy concludes that, "we just need to communicate better on what we're doing." Opinions are opinions and facts are facts. I can hope that's true or not believe anything. Scoble's suggests that readers "triangulate the truth." I find that to be impossible in the blogosphere. There's no anchorman.