I found these photos posted today while on patrol through one of the locally grown blogs that makes the claim to be "Salisbury's most reliable and unbiased source for your local news?"
The site posted the photos and stated this as factual:
"These pictures were taken by a man in Magee, MS where the eye of the storm passed through, what an experience! Magee is 150 miles North of Waveland, Mississippi where the Hurricane Katrina made land fall."
Here's the thing...
These photos? — Old.
Were they local? — Nope.
Were they even real? — Not in relation to Katrina anyway.
It only took me 5 minutes to verify that these photos had nothing to do with Katrina as the "news" blog had stated.
Back in 2005 TRUTHorFICTION.com and weather buff blogger Jamie Jarosik had posted on their sites not to be fooled by these "Katrina" photos and that "these photos were actually severe thunderstorm pictures".
I post this to make this point...
You cannot rely (solely) on blogs as your "source" for news. Blogs are not obligated to confirm, verify, or even tell the truth. Quite simply, they have nothing to lose. This isn't to say that ALL blogs are void of verifying facts, just that there are plenty around. I even suspect that on all sides of all issues, there are some that make a conscious practice of it.
If verification of facts are avoided with little things such as storm photos, think about how much "REAL" news this is being improperly "reported" by "news" blogs.
So, about THIS post? Fact or Fiction? You decide — but before you do, make sure you double check the facts and their sources.
Oh yeah, BTW - this post is HATE FREE!
4 comments:
Thank you for the factual and intellegent post.
One should never take for granted anything you see nor hear.
I for one will always admit I'm far from perfect and do not always know all the specifics on anything!
Nicely done, BTW!
Peace to ya!
Hey, your post is a little misleading. I did not confirm that those were severe thunderstorms taken anywhere NEAR Katrina. Please read on for my exact entry:
"These are actually severe thunderstorm pictures... notice there is no water around? They were taken in the Midwest, Iowa to be exact! I have seen them over and over again in different emails. The titles I have seen: "Hurricane Katrina Coming In," "Severe Texas Storms," "Severe Oklahoma Storms," "Storms in Canada".... etc. Soooo don't be fooled!! :)"
Jamie
We've re-edited our post from saying:
Back in 2005 TRUTHorFICTION.com and weather buff blogger Jamie Jarosik had confirmed to readers that these photos were of severe thunderstorms taken before landfall of Katrina.
Now our post reads:
Back in 2005 TRUTHorFICTION.com and weather buff blogger Jamie Jarosik had posted on their sites not to be fooled by these "Katrina" photos and that "these photos were actually severe thunderstorm pictures".
Admittedly we're more skilled in graphics than in writing. We had not meant to imply that you confirmed that the photos were affiliated with Katrina in any way at all. In fact just the opposite. We wanted readers to understand that the photos were not connected to Katrina (as was recently posted by a "NEWS" blog).
The intent of our post was to suggest to our readers that they should double check the information that they find in the blogosphere rather than consider all cyber content as fact without reviewing the source. This is also why we provided them with a link to your site.
Thanks btw for providing such an informative site to the cyber world. We learned quite a bit about weather from your site. It's AWESOME!
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