“WEB BIAS”

Hard core journalists: Dan Rather, Walter Kronkite, Katie Couric, Ed Bradley, gave the public a sense of safety and responsibility.

In the 70's, 80's
and most of the 90's we trusted our local and national newscasters.

I think they became, so trustworthy that when 'partisan news' and commentary took over we became oblivious and stopped insisting on the facts.

Further more with the internet, by way of computers, taking on the physical identity of our main news source: Television, we turned a blind brain to accuracy.

We all just trusted our web browsers, search engines and content gatherers. Now with the on-set of "spoof mail" and "phishing" even the most innocent click can turn a person's casual search into multiple years of chaos.

Identity Theft,

Forgery, even

Stalking can all happen via web access. and what looks authentic can actually deceive the most noted surfer.

The martinlutherking.org site really provided the best example of deception and bias. Using the whois.com tool to research websites has become empowering. Whois.com is also an interesting use of technology challenging the deceptions and policeing those of us who are looking for legitimate answers to our questions. These tools provide the ultimate defense to certain indefensible actions which plague the worldwide web.

Elizabeth E. Kirk's article was extremely useful as a guideline coupled with whois.com. As a librarian she formulated important references to verify when deciding which research is credible and which might show red flags of unreliability. As an amateur forensic examiner and media psychologist, I am more cautious about how I search and who is providing the information I ingest.