Old-school fact checking vs. just Googling it now - I miss the library method

I was looking into that claim about some ancient city being found under the ocean, and my first instinct was to just search online. But after 20 minutes I had 5 different conflicting articles and no real answers. It reminded me of back in 2011 when I was researching something similar and I actually went to the public library downtown. I spent 3 hours digging through old encyclopedias and microfiche, and I found a direct study that debunked the whole thing. The info was more trustworthy because it came from a real published journal, not some blog. Has anyone else felt like the internet makes it harder to pin down truth than easier?

3 comments

3 Comments

lunar891d ago

Librarian showed me how to check the author's sources. Pulled actual books off the shelf. Found the original study and saw the citations went back to actual scientists. Online articles just reworded the same press release over and over. Libraries force you to slow down and actually read. Google just gives you the loudest voices.

phoenixk641d ago

Yeah totally. Had the same thing happen when I tried fact-checking a viral health claim and the librarian walked me through finding the actual journal article. Turned out the online version had twisted the whole conclusion to make it sound scarier than it really was.

emmaking1d ago

Lunar89's point about the loudest voices really hit home for me. A few years ago I was looking into that big story about a famous painting being fake and the internet was just shouting about it being a conspiracy. I remember my dad had an old art book from the 80s and there it was, a whole chapter explaining the exact same thing they were calling fake news now. The book had been sitting on a shelf for decades with the real answer right there. That's the thing I miss most about the old way, you had to physically locate the source and there was no shortcut around it.

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