I just recently became aware of factcheck.org (at www.factcheck.org)--a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which is housed at the Univ. of Pennsylvania and funded by the Annenberg Foundation. It's headed by Brooks Jackson, who created the "adwatch" and "fact check" series for CNN. Like Jackson's CNN projects, factcheck.org is devoted to publishing research about the accuracy of political claims on their web site. (They also have an email service that sends their reports out when completed.) As far as I can tell, this is something new on the Internet, that could really only happen with the Internet. Clearly, this project couldn't get off the ground if it had go to teh expense of distributing its product like a newspaper. And it seems differenet than other Internet political sites, in that it strives to be independent and is independently funded. Am I right about its uniqueness? --Christian Nelson
Factcheck.org provides a unique service. TV and print news continue to be reluctant to run adwatches and to identify false claims made in candidate speeches and advertising. There's a long debate in the journalist community about whether their job is such or not. Yet, there is a real need for someone who is independent of the parties/candidates to determine whether claims made by candidates are grounded in truth or are misleading in some way. Journalists, pundits, and citizens continually harbor the feeling the candidates lie to us, but it would be nice to know if and when that happens. In terms of dissemination, the Internet saves the day! Although Brooks Jackson was fairly successful in getting the major networks to adwatch some ads, and was able to get some major newspapers to adwatch, it's been a constant struggle. The Internet makes it easy for him to produce articles on the inconsistencies and misleading claims. And, it's easier for voters to read. No longer are those who have access to the Internet beholden to the publication of the adwatches in print or broadcast on TV. If they miss an adwatch, they can log on and catch up on what they've missed. Maybe Annenberg could produce a print newsletter to disseminate the fact checking. Harvard Medical School produces a monthly newsletter on women's health for a small fee, for example. But, the timeliness of the fact checking would be lost in a monthly publication. When the primary cycle is as lightening-paced as this year's is going to be, by the time I received my monthly report from Annenberg in snail mail, the bulk of the primaries would be over! ~JSG
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-admin@aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin@aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Nelson Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:04 AM To: air-l list Subject: [Air-l] factcheck.org
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completed.) As far as I can tell, this is something new on the Internet, that could really only happen with the Internet. Clearly, this project couldn't get off the ground if it had go to teh expense of distributing its product like a newspaper. And it seems differenet than other Internet political sites, in that it strives to be independent and is independently funded. Am I right about its uniqueness? --Christian Nelson
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It does look interesting, but I think the real power of the net would come (wait for it, it will come...) when rather than have one person attempt to do the "fact checking", the ads/claims are packaged in such a way that they are thrown open to the whole world for fact checking (somebody more adept at working with RSS feeds than myself could probably devise the input on this in a few hours). Then one would have 24/7, thousands of eyeballs from every walk and every corner checking the statements/mis-statements as they roll out... A Slashdot for the world! MG -----Original Message----- From: air-l-admin@aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin@aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Nelson Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:04 AM To: air-l list Subject: [Air-l] factcheck.org I just recently became aware of factcheck.org (at www.factcheck.org)--a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which is housed at the Univ. of Pennsylvania and funded by the Annenberg Foundation. It's headed by Brooks Jackson, who created the "adwatch" and "fact check" series for CNN. Like Jackson's CNN projects, factcheck.org is devoted to publishing research about the accuracy of political claims on their web site. (They also have an email service that sends their reports out when completed.) As far as I can tell, this is something new on the Internet, that could really only happen with the Internet. Clearly, this project couldn't get off the ground if it had go to teh expense of distributing its product like a newspaper. And it seems differenet than other Internet political sites, in that it strives to be independent and is independently funded. Am I right about its uniqueness? --Christian Nelson _______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l
It has arrived, in part, in part. You might look at the wikipedia, with its attendant pros and cons. http://en.wikipedia.org/ At 12:10 PM 20/01/2004 -0500, you wrote:
It does look interesting, but I think the real power of the net would come (wait for it, it will come...) when rather than have one person attempt to do the "fact checking", the ads/claims are packaged in such a way that they are thrown open to the whole world for fact checking (somebody more adept at working with RSS feeds than myself could probably devise the input on this in a few hours).
Then one would have 24/7, thousands of eyeballs from every walk and every corner checking the statements/mis-statements as they roll out...
A Slashdot for the world!
MG
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-admin@aoir.org [mailto:air-l-admin@aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Nelson Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:04 AM To: air-l list Subject: [Air-l] factcheck.org
I just recently became aware of factcheck.org (at www.factcheck.org)--a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which is housed at the Univ. of Pennsylvania and funded by the Annenberg Foundation. It's headed by Brooks Jackson, who created the "adwatch" and "fact check" series for CNN. Like Jackson's CNN projects, factcheck.org is devoted to
publishing research about the accuracy of political claims on their web site. (They also have an email service that sends their reports out when
completed.) As far as I can tell, this is something new on the Internet,
that could really only happen with the Internet. Clearly, this project couldn't get off the ground if it had go to teh expense of distributing its product like a newspaper. And it seems differenet than other Internet political sites, in that it strives to be independent and is independently funded. Am I right about its uniqueness? --Christian Nelson
_______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l
_______________________________________________ Air-l mailing list Air-l@aoir.org http://www.aoir.org/mailman/listinfo/air-l
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Dear friends: This is a invitation to join a pool of experts to write together the first international charter about e-learning and social inclusion. This document aims at pointing out all the resources that ICT offer us to work against social exclusion. We believe that e-learning is a key instrument for excluded people so they can use the Internet to expand their competences and capacities to empower themselves to achieve a better life. The document is divided in two main sections. The first is a sort of "manifesto" to defend a social approach to e-learning and the second one is a cookbook describing best practices to obtain useful e-learning projects that can help excluded people. We have a first draft, but we want it to be as inclusive as possible, so we want to invite all the relevant experts in the field to join in and propose changes and improvements. Your input and help will be very appreciated, as we want a document as useful as possible. You can download this first draft at: http://www.el4ei.net/charter/draft.pdf Please send all your comments, proposals and observations to coordination@el4ei.net. Also indicate if you want your name to be included as a co-writer or not. This International Charter for E-learning and e-inclusion is an initiative of E-learning for E-inclusion (www.el4ei.net) a EU project under the E-learning program coordinated by Transit Projectes (www.transit.es) Best wishes The EL4EI team (www.el4ei.net)
participants (5)
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Christian Nelson -
David Casacuberta -
Jennifer Stromer-Galley -
Liss Jeffrey -
Michael Gurstein