The goal of objectivity is not fairness or balance: it is reliability and credibility. Objective information actually upsets rote "fairness" when one side of an argument is based on an obvious distortion.
From Canada, journalism instructor Mark Hamilton; e.g. today's post reporting the sighting of a new and much-improved approach to newspaper corrections:
...Full transparency. Full conversation, available for all to read. We have here a new way for media to do corrections that is neither grudging nor terse, but that adds a fullness to the process of correcting 'the first draft of history.'
From a geographically indeterminate vantage point overlooking the future, The Oil Drum;
And rising from once-swampy, saurian Brunswick Basin, The Union's weblog. Here's hoping it's a transformative experience, in a good way.
Update: if others can move forward, so can we: as of now, comments on new NCFocus weblog posts are unrestricted (i.e. not registered-users-only).
Please keep your comments civil, or else just continue miming them.
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Welcome, and thanks for caring enough to donate your time and thoughts toward greater collective wisdom...
Terms of engagement:
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* * * * Please do not post anonymously * * * (I'd remove this choice if I could, and I may remove your comment if you do) - instead, do this:
Click on the 'Name/URL' radiobutton, then enter your real name (if you're brave) or a pseudonym (if you're not). (You can leave the "URL" field blank.)
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If you run into technical difficulties, please a) accept my apologies, then b) email your comment to aherror2011 at gmail.com with "Comment for [name of this blog]" in the Subject line.
New policy re climate contrarianism comments as of 11/11/2009:
Comments questioning the climate science community's understanding of climate change (97% of active climatologists now believe that the earth is currently warming and that it's human-caused - link) will be deleted unless the commenter:
a) is local
b) uses his real name
c) provides link(s) to substantiate his claim(s)/inference(s)
d) is willing to collaborate on constructing an argument tree, to get us past the usual sterile point-counterpoint-countercounterpoint.
(For people who can't read the above, a summary:
1) Be civil;
2) Don't post w/o giving at least a pseudonym;
3) Don't espouse climate-denial crankery unless you're local and willing to stand behind it.)
Caveats:
1. Comments could be delayed: they are being moderated, and I'm sometimes away from the computer for a day or more.
2. : Perfectly legitimate comments are sometimes miscategorized (by the blogging platform) as spam, & not published. If this happens to yours, please notify me, else I might not notice for a day or two.