by Paul Schingle

Created on: September 01, 2009   Last Updated: September 04, 2009

For those who get their news online, I would caution: be careful what you believe. I've written for Helium about the virtues of print newspapers over online news. I've softened my stance a little. I read headlines, sports stories, stories on finance and other stories of interest while online. I still find the internet less satisfying than I do holding a real, paper, black-and-white newspaper. But it is another source for news. Heck, I'm such a news junkie that I will occasionally get my information from the television. As with anything, be careful what you believe.

Back to getting news from the internet. More than anything, one wants to pay specific attention to the source. They may not be perfect, but at least AP (the Associated Press) has been around a good long while. I'd even go so far as to say they've been around long enough as to have a decent reputation to protect. Are they going to get every last detail correct? Probably not. This is difficult to do - particularly on the internet. It's a race to get information out there. You're going to want to be fast. Though not perfect, I do believe the AP is going to try to be both fast and accurate. They're certainly more reliable than many things you'lll find on the internet.

The most obvious example of this is Wikipedia. Yes, I understand this isn't a news source, but bear with me using this as an example. Wikipedia is fine for looking something up real quick and getting an idea of what something is. However, Wikipedia allows anybody to contribute. That's right. You could write a piece for Wikipedia, which would be included among a number of other articles defining the same thing. Shoot. They'd probably even let me submit. The point is, if something is published just by being submitted, the veracity of the piece has to come into question. There are "news" websites which allow the same kind of submissions. As always, be careful.

This is not to say that print news is infallible. Of course, it isn't. There are biases. There are inaccuracies made because of deadlines, etc. By and large, though, because it's the longer established medium, I believe that newspapers are more trustworthy than online news. This isn't to say you can't believe anything you see on the internet. I just think it wise to pay attention.

Getting the news online is a risky venture. I'm not saying everything online is incorrect. I'm merely saying that, even more so than other sources, you have to be careful what you believe when you use the internet. I certainly don't recommend using it as your only source. But, truthfully, I'd say the same thing about any one news source.

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