There are three comments worth making on Margaret's latest -- an attack on Google.
1. Google is primarily a search engine and not a content provider. It is the latter, not Google (at least not the core business), that "has already demolished entire industries." But hold it, one of her sources -- or is that her one source -- told her that Google is bad. I wonder what kind of legwork it took to find him [note: see 3]
2. Nice to be ahead of the story on the effect of the internet on traditional media/ businesses, Margaret.
3. Margaret's confession that she does all her research via Google -- "Who needs researchers when you have Google?" -- certainly goes along way to explaining the quality of the research that goes into most of her columns. I wonder if she realizes that "[the] kinds of stories that generate page views are not the kinds of stories reporters want to write. "
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The other problem with Margaret's research is one she shares with Rex: not only does she rely on Google, but her only concern is to find a source that confirms her own, already settled, point of view. Research, Margaret and Rex, is supposed to involve looking at lots of evidence, and thinking seriously about what conclusions to draw from it, not drawing conclusions first and then digging up any kind of 'evidence' (no matter how weak) to 'support' it.
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