BeanE
Inactive
I hope you won't hold that against publications as most so-called mainstream newspapers have an online edition. Just because a "paper" is on newsprint does not give their articles more credence. What is wrong with an on-line newspaper? It's the wave of the future.
The Examiner is not an online newpaper. It's one of a wave of new paid blog sites. People sign up to blog, and they get paid by the click, and typically get bonuses for certain numbers of clicks.
If you read the analyses of these paid blog sites, you'll see that they're known for being fraught with inaccuracies, and seeded with numerous keywords (the more keywords, the more search hits, the more clicks, the more payments). Indeed, some of these sites overall, and some of the bloggers on these sites, use a sensationalistic, tabloidesque style in which accuracy in reporting is far less of a consideration than grabbing attention to get people to click through.
These paid blog sites simply do not have the same journalistic standards that traditional mainstream media news sites have.
Google had been including them in their News search (which was driving me crazy!), and just recently I noticed that they're dropping them out of the News search one by one.
Myself and some of the other mods have been cautioning our members about relying on these sites as source references. Some mods disallow linking to blogs in some of our forums. Members and guests rely on WS as a source of reliable information, and in general, because blogs are not held to the same journalistic standards as MSM media news sites, they are not sources of reliable information.
As with anything else, some of the sites overall are not as bad as others so far as inaccuracies; some of the bloggers are not as bad as other so far as inaccuracies.
It's a matter of 'buyer beware' so to speak. Read them and consider them as you would any other blog, with the added caution that these particular blogs are heavily geared toward getting you to click through to them. In general, we don't use blogs as credible source reference links at WS - we use MSM, court documents, etc.
ETA: Now let's all please get back on topic - this case.