Jim Davila has been highlighting how the New York Times has been backtracking on and correcting an article which engaged in the common denialist tactic of treating diverse scholarly views about specific details as though it were evidence that the existence of the very thing under investigation were in doubt – in this case, in relation to the existence of temples on the temple mount in Jerusalem. I thought his final note about the role of scholarly blogs in relation to the media deserves to be shared. Here is what he wrote:
“In 2005 I published an essay about blogging on the SBL Forum website in which I predicted that there would come a time when:
… any professional news story will be subject to immediate criticism by experts and eyewitnesses; these worthwhile responses will be indexed next to the story itself by intelligent software; and everyone will know to check for them. The emergent order we can see developing around us even now will let the cream rise to the top and hold the media (and bloggers!) accountable for their every word as soon as it is uttered.
And I have further comments on the subject in a 2010 SBL paper. We aren't there yet, but we're getting closer.”
In addition to Jim's comments above and in the article and paper he links to, see the piece in The Conversation about the role of bloggers in the investigation of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife.
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