The director of the site "Il Post", Luca Sofri has recently written a book on the crazy hoaxes circulating in newspapers and on the web and the title needs no comment: "News that wasn't". All journalism is under accusation but above all online journalism where editorial controls are weaker.
Umberto Eco has unleashed hell on the Net for having argued that "the Internet gives the right to speak to legions of imbeciles who used to talk at the bar and who now have the same right to speak as a Nobel". Open up heaven.
As always, you can't make a bundle of all the herbs, but it's a great good that online journalism is finally opening a comparison without taboos that brings the need for quality and reliability to the fore. Nobody can be denied the right to speak but it is not enough to write on a social network to do journalism and least of all good journalism which, to be such, requires not only knowledge of the subject and clarity of expression but also mastery of journalistic techniques and in particular the constant control and verification of sources and information.
But who can teach you to distinguish between sites and who can certify the quality and reliability of a web journal? Eco appeals to traditional newspapers and the school. I agree that schools should teach how to filter Internet information just as they should teach how to read and distinguish between newspapers and newspapers and between journalists and journalists. Eco, on the other hand, will forgive us if we express total disagreement with the fact that it is paper newspapers, which often reflect the same flaws of unreliability as web newspapers, as Luca Sofri's book documents, that give the web sites report cards. Heaven forbid the day when trashy newspapers, even paper ones, are called upon to review the reliability of a site like FIRSTonline.
In reality only the market, ie the readers, can judge the quality and reliability of the sites, even if the choice is not easy, because, if the number of printed newspapers is all in all limited, that of sites is alluvial. Just as an attentive reader eventually learns to distinguish between the validity of one traditional publication and another and between the reliability of one signature and another, so time helps to distinguish between one site and another.
Since, however, the youth and the number of sites make it more difficult for now to select quality online journalism, why not think of some transitional solution that facilitates the reader's choices until the natural selection of the species has made the evaluation easier of sites and their reliability?
Nothing and no one can replace the final judgment of the readers but identifying some way to help their choices is not impossible. Why not think, on an experimental basis, of a sort of blue stamp that certifies the reliability of a site and its individual journalistic services? To be entrusted to whom? Naturally at the judgment of an institution of proven credibility and unquestionable impartiality. In the case of online economic journalism – but this also applies to other publishing sectors – an independent authority such as that of the Bank of Italy could be asked to draw up a web press review indicating which articles, in its opinion, are online that deserve to be read for their quality and reliability.
The writer has already openly made this proposal to the Director General of the Bank of Italy, Salvatore Rossi, who is a central banker who is particularly attentive to the digital revolution, on the occasion of the presentation of the new Via Nazionale site. "I understand the spirit of the proposal but - was Rossi's answer - who are we to claim the right to judge the sites?". Dear Dr. Rossi, you are the Bank of Italy and among the functions of your high magisterium why not also include the noble civil function of helping the growth and maturation of economic and financial information online by distinguishing quality from unreliability?
If it is not the Bank of Italy, it could be the Accademia dei Lincei or individual universities or institutional or private subjects with proven competence and independence that will issue a blue sticker for the sites or for their most deserving articles. But the Internet quality problem is there and it's time to address it. Without taboos.
