How Will Consumers Know Which Site Is Trustworthy And Which Is Not?

By Author: Kevin Garnnet
Total Articles: 24
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The era of interactivity is raising other questions as well. Some people are asking whether too much feedback from the supposed audience could reduce news outlets to panderers. Whereas focus groups were once a prime means by which editors received feedback about the interest value of specific stories, "online editors now have the ability to calculate, almost instantaneously, exactly how many readers look at each article on their site and how long they spend there. James Poniewozik, media columnist for Salon, wondered in a recent column whether, 'as we get better and better at giving readers exactly what they want, what will be the percentage in trying to give readers what we think they need?' "

As readers play a more active role in the shaping of media content, the whole notion of complaint may become obsolete at the same time as the need for audience vigilance will increase. This is because the proliferation of channels and Web sites is inevitable. An estimated 800 million pages existed on the Breitling Replica Web as of summer 1999.5 by 2003, every television ...
... station in the United States must become digital. In addition to adding hundreds of channels, this change will mean that television sets, like the computers of today, will be interactive. Lawrence Grossman, former president of NBC and PBS, prophesies, "In the digital era, amateur reporters as well as pros, 'real people' as well as certified pundits, outsiders as well as insiders, ordinary observers as well as authentic experts will be able to file their own videos and eyewitness reports to the world via Web sites and chat groups on the Internet."

How will consumers know which site is trustworthy and which is not? And who is the object of complaint or suit when false material is posted on the Web? Those questions were raised in January 1999, when a story attributed to the Montgomery County Ledger was posted on the Web alleging that political consultant and pundit James Carville had been arrested for beating his wife, political consultant and pundit Mary Matalin. The report, which looked and read like a news story, carried the byline Lee Canular and the dateline Rockville, Maryland. There is no Montgomery County Ledger and no reporter named Canular. Carville and Matalin don't even live in Rockville. The story was an Internet hoax. Before it was discredited, however, it had been carried by American Family Radio to twenty-five states and had prompted thirty to thirty-five reporters from around the country to call the Rockville police station for confirmation.7 Had the story been carried in a newspaper, Carville would have known which channels to employ to complain. Unless the perpetrator slips up and is identified, the Democratic pundit has little recourse in this case.

The structures that emerge to certify the trustworthiness of Internet information are likely to be the successors of today's networks, major papers, and magazines. The clearest evidence that structures that we trust will Breitling Replica Watches be institutionalized is the success of consumerreports.org, which has more subscribers—at $19 a month—than any of the other information-based Web sites, including the Wall Street Journal Interactive. What accounts for its success? "Consumer Reports powerful brand name is drawing online subscribers at a brisk clip even though they get pretty much the same content as print subscribers. There is almost no original content on the website, though there are message boards."8 Even if you've saved your old issues of Consumer Reports, the Web is simply a more efficient way of getting the comparative information you need before making a major purchase.