"60 Minutes" and Web Site Evaluations -Reply

[Dan Lester]

>>> Bill Crosbie <crosbie at AESOP.RUTGERS.EDU>
03/04/97 07:28am >>>
If so, does it concern anyone that a major media player has
defined themselves in such a way?  I am worried about the
extension of this argument to - "If I haven't heard of this
domain, or person, or if it is not someone that I am familar
with, that it must be bunk."
-----------------------------------------------
Doesn't bother me at all.  It has always been thus.  Don't
people give more credibility to something published in a
referreed scholarly journal than in my home published
journal?  You're more likely to believe I developed workable
Cold Fusion if it is in Science or some specialist nuke journal
than if it is in "The Weekly News of Science in Boise" which I
started to hand out the week before on street corners. Right?
 Same for NY Times vs. some local paper.  And on and on. 
The non-print media have always done this too. Right now
Boise's CBS and NBC stations are competing to be the "best
news station", each claiming services the other doesn't have.
 I watch one at six, the other at ten, not because of that, but
because they give different emphases and slants.  And
because the local ABC affiliate is truly terrible.  

And the point about your email address being of importance
is also correct.  Just look at the "if it is from aol.com it is
garbage and/or the user is an idiot" school of thought.  Of
course I'd be more likely to think a website was official for
Stahl if it was on CBS.com.  Even the "media stars" have
both official sites with their film company, TV network, etc,
as opposed to all the fan sites that are out there.  Of course
some of the fan sites are better, more complete, more
honest, than the corporate ones, but that too isn't surprising,
is it?

There just isn't that much new under the sun...at least as far
as human behaviors and beliefs go.

cyclops


Dan Lester, Network Information Coordinator
Boise State University Library, Boise, Idaho, 83725 USA
voice: 208-385-1235   fax:  208-385-1394
dlester at bsu.idbsu.edu     OR    alileste at idbsu.idbsu.edu
Cyclops' Internet Toolbox:    http://cyclops.idbsu.edu
"How can one fool make another wise?"   Kansas, 1979.