(Sorry, Sonious... I tried to reply directly to your post but the reply button was glitchy.)
"Ah but what is actual news but a LOG of events? Saying a blog (or a log) is not news oriented in its own right is false."
A news item should not only be factual but as neutral as possible. It should not reflect the bias of the writer, the staff or the publisher. Otherwise it then becomes an editorial and calls in questions about any conflict-of-interests. Frankly, an editorial position would be all right if that is supposed to be the intent. But I think there's enough opinion generated in the comments section as is.
"Back to this, however, it was merely a recording of the prank Furcadia played on their users for April 1st, nothing more, nothing less. Why so much stress if this is true or not? If it is Furcadia was playing an April Fools prank, if not then he's playing a fools prank, if you wanted proof, how about going on Furcadia? If you don't use Furcadia, why care at all?"
I care that facts are presented. I also care about HOW they're presented. I didn't really mind that there was an April Fool style gag post earlier on; what I minded was that there was about a half-dozen of them in short order, and half of them appear to be reports on pranks elsewhere, without identifying them as such in the posted article. I don't recall any of those articles stating that they were either gags or that a gag was being perpetrated on another website, and that's info that should be stated up-front at some point within the post itself. Rather, the reader was left to make assumptions. Relying on readers to verify a report by clicking on supplied links is lazy -- it's essentially telling the reader to do the reporter's fact-checking for him -- and is far different from simply supplying a source for his info.
(Sorry, Sonious... I tried to reply directly to your post but the reply button was glitchy.)
"Ah but what is actual news but a LOG of events? Saying a blog (or a log) is not news oriented in its own right is false."
A news item should not only be factual but as neutral as possible. It should not reflect the bias of the writer, the staff or the publisher. Otherwise it then becomes an editorial and calls in questions about any conflict-of-interests. Frankly, an editorial position would be all right if that is supposed to be the intent. But I think there's enough opinion generated in the comments section as is.
"Back to this, however, it was merely a recording of the prank Furcadia played on their users for April 1st, nothing more, nothing less. Why so much stress if this is true or not? If it is Furcadia was playing an April Fools prank, if not then he's playing a fools prank, if you wanted proof, how about going on Furcadia? If you don't use Furcadia, why care at all?"
I care that facts are presented. I also care about HOW they're presented. I didn't really mind that there was an April Fool style gag post earlier on; what I minded was that there was about a half-dozen of them in short order, and half of them appear to be reports on pranks elsewhere, without identifying them as such in the posted article. I don't recall any of those articles stating that they were either gags or that a gag was being perpetrated on another website, and that's info that should be stated up-front at some point within the post itself. Rather, the reader was left to make assumptions. Relying on readers to verify a report by clicking on supplied links is lazy -- it's essentially telling the reader to do the reporter's fact-checking for him -- and is far different from simply supplying a source for his info.