Should quotes be taken from the internet?
Recently a journalist participated in a chat forum (called a list service), run by the Canadian Association of Journalists. He later was surprised to find his written words used in a newspaper column.
The journalist’s chief concern was that the columnist never contacted him to check why he wrote what he did or to ensure his words were reported in proper context.
It spawned a flurry of e-mail messages from other journalists on the list about the ethics and reliability of using quotes from the internet.
Read Also
Growth plates are instrumental in shaping a horse’s life
Young horse training plans and workloads must match their skeletal development. Failing to plan around growth plates can create lifelong physical problems.
They debated whether a list is a public forum where it’s fair game to extract the quotes, or whether it is considered a private discussion where permission for quotes is needed.
The ethics issue aside, this is a good time to caution people about the internet, particularly as it becomes more popular as a research tool.
We should always be wary of information on the internet and treat it like any other source: Double-check the accuracy and the source of the information.
In the computer world, it is easier to disguise a person because there is no visual image or voice to reveal who is providing the information.
A 13-year-old can be a nuclear physicist; an innocent query for fellow children as penpals could be written by an adult with questionable motives; or someone else may have typed the message from an unsuspecting user’s terminal or internet address.
Also, things may be taken out of context, words may be deleted or typos may have occurred.
For these reasons, all interviews by e-mail or quotes and facts obtained from the internet should be double-checked with the source.
Most importantly, use other sources to verify the facts.
