Time for Reflection on the Nature of Blogging - Hoboken Journal Gets Introspective

I just read an interesting article on CNN about how the potential exists for online websites (and blogs) to distort the reality of events especially in the political context. I think this is particularly telling given the recent coverage of the City Garage on another infamous website. I also think a little introspection on this topic could be useful to my website as well in terms of balance. I have never hidden from the fact that this website to some extent is an advocacy blog but it is important to strive for editorial balance even if you are not a traditional journalist.

Here is the link to the CNN article and an excerpt of it below for the reader to digest:

How web journalism can make people seem hateful
By Gregory Ferenstein, Special to CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/08/16/internet.journalism.politics/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

"The flurry of finger-pointing, both of prejudice against Palin and Breitbart, and the counterclaims of conspiracy against the "liberal media," misses the hidden puppet master causing the scandals: a powerful psychological tendency for ideologues unwittingly to distort facts to fit their preconceived biases.

These tendencies have been exaggerated by the internet, whose polarizing sites -- the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post, just to name a few -- give citizens the option of sealing themselves inside an echo chamber of their own beliefs.
On the web, ideologues are both journalist and pundit. Indeed, with the rise of investigative blogging, we should expect a long future of biased, inflammatory "evidence" -- on both sides of the political spectrum.

The official psychological term for this behavior is "motivated cognition" -- a tendency to bias our interpretation of facts to fit a version of the world we wish to believe is true. For instance, one study found that college basketball fans, viewing the same video of a game, were likely to believe the rival team committed at least twice as many fouls as their own.

Political beliefs are even more susceptible. Research has found that when psychologists confront political partisans with facts contradictory to their opinions, they become even more convinced of their existing beliefs.

.....

Unless critical thinking, the psychology of misinterpretation and proper research skills are given priority in education, our children can look forward to years of finger-pointing online news."

My Comment: Ironically (since I am known to be fairly progressive), this article is based two incidents where blogs attacked conservatives unjustly in terms of twisting facts to paint a picture that really wasn't there in these two cases. To what extent have you the reader seen this on other websites and  perhaps even on this website as well. Feel free to comment. I am entirely cognizant of the fact that at times my judgement is based on my preconceptions and assumptions.

For additional reading on cognitive bias got to wikipedia to get started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias ◦

Time for Reflection on the Nature of Blogging - Hoboken Journal Gets Introspective