A lesson for bloggers: go to the source or look like a fool

The Hill, a popular newspaper covering D.C. and Congress, wrote a story claiming iPhones were well on their way to being offered to members of Congress and their staff. However, the piece, entitled "iPhones are a must-have for Congress," was way off target and made many bloggers who sourced it look foolish. It was "simply inaccurate," according to Jeff Ventura, press secretary for the Chief Administrative Officer for the House of Representatives.

Many blogs wrote up the Hill article as fact and never bothered to follow up with Jeff Ventura, the original source for the story. He was happy to talk about the topic, but he told me I was the second reporter to call him about the story. The first was Roll Call -- the other Congressional paper.

The office of the CAO is in charge of the day-to-day communications systems of the House, and is the department in charge of email and cell phones for members. Ventura told me the author of The Hill article, Jordy Yager, had taken his quotes out of context in several places and, worse, had directly misquoted him in others.

In the article, Yager quotes Ventura saying "we heard a lot of people wanted the option to have" iPhones, and that the CAO was testing iPhones to see if they are "compatible with the working needs of lawmakers and staff."

Ventura told me that there had been "some interest from offices inquiring about if we would ever have them", but no outright demands for the phone. While the CAO does have five iPhones on hand, are just "trying them out." Ventura said that "in terms of the beta testing that we've done so far, unless demand is incredible for them, it's probably not something that we'll be offering. We don't see people bemoaning the fact that they have to use the BlackBerry Pearl."

The quotes I got were a far cry from what The Hill had printed -- and I wrote a story saying so. It's not as if Ventura was hard to reach, either. His number is right on the CAO's press page. It took me literally five minutes to find out the story was wrong on several key points.

Blogs, as a general rule, seldom have scoops. Sure, there are a few stories that actually broke in the blogosphere, but most real reporting comes from wire stories and local newspapers. Blogs, at best, just make the story louder. They just re-report -- and re-analyze -- stories from elsewhere.

In my mind this is the main difference between "blogs" and "news sources." Forget the nonsense about posting formats and short posts -- time stamps and comments. None of that matters. The truly innovative sites -- the ones really worth reading -- are those actually breaking stories. There aren't many of them. Most simply regurgitate what other people have already written, with a link and a hat tip.

This is the reason blogs will never replace traditional journalism. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool.

That's not to say journalists are angels when it comes to fact-checking. Drew Curtis, owner of Fark.com, wrote an entire book slamming lazy journalists -- and pulls no punches about writers who don't do their homework.

"That's my biggest complaint about lazy writers," Curtis told me. "They're so fucking dumb, they never check to see if claims are accurate. They accuse everyone else of 'believing everything they read on the Internet', then don't check sources themselves."

These writers aren't just run-of-the-mill folks that no one reads either. These are factually inaccurate stories run on major blogs or media sites that could easily be corrected with a five-minute phone call. Consider the following examples: