Critical thinkers needed!

Their grey-matter filters need to be working better than ever to find facts on the Web. In his latest "Portals" column for the Wall Street Journal, Lee Gomes talks about something students and all Web researchers need to be aware of: "original content." It's a trend in the Web economy in which little businesses make money from Web sites by getting Web searchers to go to them. But the information in them has to be "original" if people are to find them in search engines – the search engines penalize sites (move them down in search results) if they simply duplicate info from other sites. So these little businesses pay writers (very little) to slightly reword and, in effect, fictionalize *real* information from, for example, the World Health Organization or Britannica.com. What to do? If you're seeking fact rather than fiction, it's a good idea to search Ask.com, Google, etc. for a known brand like the WHO or Britannica, then search those reputable sites for specific info. In another example, if you're looking for authenticity in pundits' blogs, be careful; we now know some companies are paying bloggers to get the corporate message out - or even writing parts of their blog posts. The New York Times gives the Wal-Mart example.