CNN's iReport, which is news to me (pardon the pun), - are they for real?Wikipedia describes the service (sic) thus: "iReport (also I-Report) is CNN's citizen journalism initiative that allows people from around the globe to contribute pictures and video of breaking news stories. It is similar to Wikinews in that it allows, and encourages, regular citizens to submit stories, photos and videos related to any breaking news. Submissions are not edited, fact-checked, or screened."
So in essence, it's an unsubstantiated public blogging forum which inundates cyberspace with private opinions - nothing more, nothing less. Then people repost some of the crap that's disgorged there, all neatly trimmed with the CNN logo as if that lends the "article" some credibility... as if CNN was the doyen of objectivity in the first place.
When, in fact, knobrot69's racist vitriol is just that - someone ineloquently venting their spleen and claiming their grammatically challenged bumswill to be factual reporting.
Isn't there enough effluence clogging the Internet pipelines as it is?
What startles me more perhaps than the cludge and the ease with which it gets dispensed, is our own suspension of incredulity as we consume more and more of this as part of our chosen reality.
I long for the return of those days when people just screamed into pillows or hit a punching bag when they wanted to vent - it was private and uninfectious.
Now the slime just oozes from the internet like thousand year old sewage...
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