Hey Ed, I like your blog.
But you make a common research mistake by linking your news URLs back to your own blog, instead of to the original published link, or the reference commonly required for a reputable contribution to the academic body of research. You might want to consider updating your links to original publications to increase your level of journalistic or academic integrity. Use of PDF images are really not properly crediting your original sources.
BTW, how are your book sales going?
Badabing Badablonde.
I respectfully disagree, without questioning whether that is a wig. Citing to the original news link would result in Ed’s hundreds of news articles having links that are expired or broken. Then such stories would be lost, perhaps forever. Instead, he has made them available for us — and they are available even after the passage of 5 years. I’ve always found that he has scrupulously reproduced the full content of what he posts, and I’m his harshest critic — constantly urging him to include articles relevant to an Al Qaeda anthrax theory. (He tends to begrudgingly post much of it). People can do a quick google for the original link.
For example, it’s hard to get a ready link to Mueller’s October 2005 press conference precisely because Ed did not link it. (And that’s probably because we often miss things that don’t come down google news). And so the best link I can find is when on January 17, 2007 CBS happened to link it.
Ed may be wildly wrong on the whodunnit, and on the fact that silica was present, but everyone appreciates his tireless updating of news articles and his ongoing coverage of the Hatfill matter. It’s just that people tend to forget that the Hatfill matter is just a civil matter from 3-4 years ago — there still is Amerithrax to crack and Zawahiri is still threatening a massive attack against the US.
Hey, Ed, can you link Director Mueller’s October 2005 press conference as it is the best statement on the status of Amerithrax that there is, and your failure to link it is telling. (The printed summary did not include the important stuff.)
p.s. Badabing Badasomething else used to be TrebleRebel’s old pen name. So let’s not have a tag team on Mr. Lake.
I tried doing things that way when I started the site back in November of 2001, but things quickly fell apart.
Most media links change or are removed from the original site after a few days. The Washington Post, for example, moves their articles to a section of their site where you have to pay to view the articles. Many (like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal) require a subscription or membership to view any article.
I don't want to refer to an article that people cannot see without signing up. I want people to be able to read the articles I read and/or cite. AND I want to be able to go back and do research in the old articles myself. Very very few free original articles remain around forever.
When I realized what was happening, I started making my own copies. At first, I tried having links to both my own copy and the original. But the links to the originals were becoming invalid one by one, so I just stopped bothering with them. I just make a copy and use my copy. The only alternative seems to be to spend most of my time every day trying to figure out where the vanished articles are now located or if they've vanished into archives which you have to pay to view.
If that reduces my "level of journalistic or academic integrity", so be it.
BTW, how are your book sales going?
Very very slow. Since only one magazine reviewed it, few people know about it. And probably only one person in a hundred who visits my site buys and reads books.
But it doesn't take much to spur sales. A couple months ago some guy on Salon.com mentioned me and my book, and every copy Amazon.com had (which was only 2 or 3) sold out almost instantly.