From most of what I am reading in the responses, it seems like most of us would be hard pressed to find multiple sites or blogs that are all accurate, fair, and ethical at the same time. People who are sifting through blogs or websites for information would have to search at least for a little while to find a fair and accurate source. I am not sure how many people are willing to take that much time out in the search for good information. Also, I would argue that it will take some time before we can practically expect any type of ethics to develop among bloggers and political webcasters in general. We would have to create a system of incentives for journalists to actually meet these standards.
I guess I am not so sure about my stance on the need for technology to achieve democratic deliberation. In the ever widening and fast-paced world of interaction that we face, it may indeed be necessary for people to keep up with issues--especially if we expect them to become citizen journalists--through an online medium. However, what about those who cannot afford the technology? Will excluding this sector of the population achieve truly democratic deliberation? I would like to think that we do not absolutely need techonology in order for better deliberation--we just need to be active within our communities.

I thought I would up the fun-ness level of this post by searching for a blog that I might actually want to read again. I started with CultureCat | Rhetoric and Feminism because the title combined two of my favorite things. While there were entries in which I took a personal interest, the blog lacked a steady flow of comments and the subject matter was all over the place. Searching and searching... I wasted the better part of an hour and a half looking for something on which to comment. I spent most of my time reading Bitch, Ph.D.. The first entry was a lengthy argument against Scalito's nomination. She provided external links to specific cases (mostly from FindLaw.com) in an effort to support her argument that Scalito would make a terrible judge. Maybe I'm biased, but I found her use of hard evidence to be both fair and accurate. One may not arrive at the same conclusions after reading through the cases that she provides, but their inclusion may make intelligent deliberation possible. There were other entries that I enjoyed reading (Rosa Parks, Plan B, Libby indictment) and the comments on those articles, though few, were insightful. Yet and still, the post which received the most comments featured a truly tragic debate over whether or not the author should buy stiletto boots. One could argue that it is productive for 115 people to help a woman decide on footwear, but that One would be wrong. Seriously though, I think that the ethics for which Gillmor argues are necessary for "productive exchange" but they do not "ensure" that the exchange will occur; the desire to talk about shoes is just too compelling. As to achieving democratic deliberation, blogs and news feeds provide an already-wired public with the opportunity to approach the threshold of omnicompetence, thereby increasing insightful deliberation and bettering the chance that effective actions will follow.

I don't know of a website where everyone follows the rules. There is always someone that is going to disobey the rules. I think that if we already had the habits then technology would not be a necessity, but it exists and people are going to use it. They might as well learn to follow a set of rules to help the flow of communication.

I found an old article (last year), but it seemed relevant. Companies paid to fact check blogs:

Bacon's to "Fact-Check" blog content

MediaPost reports that Bacon's Information, will soon begin monitoring blogs for their clients. This is yet-another indication that blogs are establishing themselves in the mainstream corporate world. Public Relations professionals and corporate management are beginning to realize that blogs provide an exceptionally valuable source of market intelligence. Companies that don't monitor blogs are going to find themselves at a disadvantage to those that do...

While Bacon's plans tell us something about the growing acceptance of blog's importance, it is also an indication that some of the "rough" side of blogging may soon be smoothed out... Many have complained that widely read blogs don't maintain the same "standards" for accuracy that traditional journalists are held to. Well, Bacon's may be trying to fix this "problem".

Ruth McFarland of Bacon's has assigned three "editors" to the task of monitoring entries on a proprietary list of 250 A-List blogs. Apparently they intend to "spot-check" and "fact-check" postings... It would seem that 250 A-list bloggers are soon to find their words being much more closely scrutinized then they have been in the past.

Perhaps we're seeing here the creation of a new corporate job title: "Blog Fact-Checker"... In traditional newspapers, magazines, etc. the fact-checker is a regular member of the publisher's staff and fact-checking is done prior to publication. Bacon seems to be developing the idea of "post-publication fact-checking." It may be that in this world of distributed publishing, the task of "fact-checking" will also be distributed -- with the subjects of publications providing much more of the "fact-checking" function than they do for traditional publications. If such "post-publication" fact-checking becomes the norm, we might eventually hear people say things like "Don't trust any blog post that hasn't been up for at least 24 hours...".

Just as we now have paid bloggers and paid blog readers (monitors), one can imagine that we'll soon have yet another way to answer the question: "How can I make money with blogs?" The answer for some might be to hire themselves out as fact-checkers for the A-List bloggers and others who, like "real journalists," don't want to go through all the grungy work of fact-checking their writing. We might soon be seeing little icons at the bottom of blog posts that certify that the entry was "Fact-Checked by Sarah's FactChecking Service, Inc."...

http://bobwyman.pubsub.com/main/2004/12/bacons_to_factc.html

[This discussion forum post looks and feels like a blog entry]

Due to time constraints I went straight to two trusted blogs: http://www.wonkette.com/ and http://bookslut.com/blog/.

I quickly went through a few postings, but I knew what I'd find. Although they definitely say very rude things about public officials or famous people, they stay within the habits Gillmor prescribes.

The way they do this is by keeping their posts very concise. They are masters at saying quite a bit by saying very little. The meaning behind their brief snarky comments is much larger than the amount of space used or number of words, AND they always link to the article or book in question. Bookslut is heavy on the quote, but then again they are posting about books. I'm not 100% familiar with fair usage, but it seems to me that both fall well within its confines.

Both these blogs were the first that I started reading on a regular basis. The danger in them is that they make it look easy, and it's not. They make it look like everyone can just link to articles and interesting things for a decent blog, but truly the quality is in the sarcastic, irreverent comments.

Neither have a comment feature, but they link to other blogs and have other blogs link to them. It can be a conversation amongst the elite bloggers in that fashion. Other bloggers with comment functions can (and often do) link to them, so their can be discussion that way.

I guess maybe the cursing on bookslut might be an issue if there was some completely repressive community that had a ban on curse words, but in that case: Rock on bookslut, piss those mofos off!

Yeah, I was just noticing that everyone we've read ends up saying "oh, wait, here's the deal..." late in their books. Just a thought.

I'm a big fan of snopes.com. They cover alot of urban legends, email hoaxes, the like. I really like snopes because the site is run by a staff who documents their research and provides online resources to back up the conclusions they reach. In addition, there is a message board linked to the site, where your average john q publics can converse about misniformation, which aids in building democratic deliberation. However, I do have to agree with Evan, in that democratic deliberation isn't made by technology, it's just made a hell of a lot easier.

[1] Try to find a website where the ethics that Gillmor advocates are practiced:

I am a loyal fan of factcheck.org. Factcheck.org holds politicians, think tanks, activists, reporters, etc accountable for what they say or publish. According to Gillmor, accuracy, fairness, and ethical practices denote a credible news source. I believe that factcheck.org accomplishes these three standards because they callout liberals and conservatives alike in an unbiased manner. For instance, today on factcheck.org, a Republican governor candidate was called out for a “copy/paste violation.” He took a Democrat’s interview concerning the death penalty out of context, and then attempted to paraphrase it in a misleading fashion. Factcheck.org did a little research on the web, found the interview, and presented the article in its true light. The GOP candidate not only misled the public, he lied. Factcheck.org didn’t stop there. In another case, they called out a liberal anti-war activist group called “Win Without War” for the same crime, copy/pasting and paraphrasing officials out of context. You see, factcheck.org presents hard evidence to counter false claims (accuracy). Furthermore, they call out any politician/think tank/activist/reporter, regardless of political affiliation (fairness). Lastly, they steer from making partisan interjections in their research and journalism (ethical practices).

[2] Do these habits exchange a productive exchange among citizens?

Not particularly. Factcheck.org is not a blog or any type of online community. Rather, it is a source that compliments the millions of communities the World Wide Web offers. Nevertheless, factcheck.org is in the process of establishing Gillmor’s loved Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. Factcheck.org’s RSS feeds will be helpful and engage citizens because it will allow citizens a different way to keep up on FC’s numerous postings. As said by Gillmor, “This syndication capability allows readers of blogs and other kinds of sites to have their computers and other devices automatically retrieve the content they care about” (38).

[3] If we already have beneficial habits, do we need the technology in order to achieve democratic deliberation?

Technology doesn’t ensure democratic deliberation; it just makes it a hell of a lot easier. Things such as forums and blogs challenge people like Dewey and Lippmann’s conceptions of community. While misleading practices plague our technological communities, the benefits outweigh the negative aspects. Fortunately, things such as trolls and copy write violations online are slowly being dealt with. Day-by-day we figure out new ways to combat these problems. Nevertheless, cut/paste tactics and spin have always been around. I see nothing new with these problems. That’s why I believe resources that can constantly update like factcheck.org are more helpful than ever before.

In my quest to turn up a site which shows attributes of the accuracy, fairness, and ethical practices which Gillmor advocates, I began with what I knew, burntorangereport, and tried to find links to other blogs. However, the majority of these linked sites failed to have sufficiently updated material. I believe, that in order to maintain accuracy in the fast paced news cycle, a blog must maintain at least a daily post in order to sufficiently inform its audience. The best blog I found through the links was pinkdome.com, Which was both funny, and informative. A glance at the top story details a congressional candidate who is going on dates with women for a fee of $25. His blog can be found at http://joeydauben.blogspot.com/ \

This topic is appropriate for the discussion of Gillmor because a large portion of what he was saying in chapters 8 – 10 dealt with libel and slander. Pinkdome was definitely making fun of this young congressional candidate. However, since it was merely pointing to other sites, and properly explaining the details of the situation and then giving the opinion that selling dates for campaign funds is a bit questionable ethically, is completely legitimate. So the website is fair, in that it linked to the candidate’s website, ideally to get the story from that perspective, and also linked to the article explaining the dating scenario.

For the most part, it would be fair to say that Pinkdome does have the habits Gillmor advocates, however from viewing the website, it is not immediately seen whether or not the website ensures a productive exchange among citizens. There is a comment section after each post, however, as expected, all the opinions given are from readers with the same political views as the blog itself. So while they readers are indeed reading and gaining information, no debate is occurring. This sort of agreement is similar to what many people find in their own circle of friends or family. We do not need the technology to find a group of people that we agree with. Someone in class keeps referring to the book Bowling Alone. The idea that as participation in bowling declines, so does voting or public participation is the thesis I believe. By that logic, we do not need the technology to maintain the deliberation provided by blogs. The blogs may exist as an entity only so that we can find more people from across the nation who agree with us, rather than at our local bowling alley.