There are websites like the Onion and magazines like the National Enquirer that most people would have to be under the influence of illegal drugs to consider them a serious news source. Other websites such as Huffington Post and The Informed Vegan however, fall somewhere inside the interpretive spectrums of "fact", "opinion", and "bias".
I have some qualms with the Huffington Post. Yes, the tagline of the website does state, "Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post", but where is the distinction between the two? A friend of a friend recently got published on Huffington's website. When we asked her how she was able to be published online, she only said that she "had an in" and divulged nothing further. Even though I didn't go straight to the source and ask the managing editor of the website why she was published, this insinuation made me reconsider the validity of some of their articles. I find most information on the Huffington Post reliable, but this particular situation makes it seem like any Jane Doe with a personal connection to the magazine staff can be published. I am in no way invalidating her article, which discussed the importance of attending college despite the growing difficulty of finding sufficient funds to do so, I'm only analyzing the way in which Huffington Post goes about finding selections for online content. Maybe she's an intern and got the opportunity to submit an article, who knows.
Some other sites online may be full of facts, but are not taken seriously because of their emotional biases. The Informed Vegan is a site that I frequent often and despite the lifestyle bias that surrounds this site, I find it completely credible and reliable. Most opinion based websites aren't usually backed up by statistics and facts. For example, the Informed Vegan has daily news stories (surprisingly there are enough animal rights/vegan charged topics to create a web platform for them) from various sources like CNN, NY Times, and others. The articles are written in colloquial language and obviously speak out against the abuse of animals. The most common technique is taking an article that describes some animal misuse and cynically explains why Sara Lee, for example, is a terrible corporation. This may deter some readers. By saying this information conversationally, does it make the posts less reliable? I don't believe so. They also embed links into their articles that take readers back to the source of the story or other related information. Even the Statistics link on the website looks a little less than trustworthy, with it's "Post Secret" structure, but each entry is backed up with a link containing those statistics. I think it's important for the website to try as hard as possible to dissuade non-vegans from writing off the information as "militant vegan bullshit". Even if I wasn't vegan, and I happened upon this site, I would still find it informative and wouldn't doubt it's content just because most meat-eaters view them as ranting hippies. I am not saying however, that some other websites are credible only because they supply facts. This is seen in the case of Wikipedia. Site members can make up facts and post false entries that are either a meager attempt at humor or just complete absurd. In the case of The Informed Vegan however, I'm only saying that it's harder to dispute news findings from other credible sources.
Sometimes websites become discredited because of the biases that the people who read their websites conform to. I find that this is the most common way that internet sources because less reliable. Most people get news via word of mouth, and in my experiences, most people exaggerate, leave out key points, or shift the story to favor a certain person or point of view. The Internet is a never ending resource that allows people to research the validity of their information, but if false news comes from a seemingly-but-not-so-reliable friend, than those facts have already been polluted. This stuff is even sometimes recycled not only verbally, but through the internet. Twitter posts, message board threats, or Facebook updates can parade this stuff as true when in reality, the facts are skewed and people accept them at face value.
This goes to say that one shouldn't never stop researching facts online. If something seems sketchy, look it up. If something seems too good to be true, look it up, and if you just want to be doubly sure? Look. It. Up.
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