Dangers of Internet publishing: to be heeded, yet not feared

The Internet is not only here to stay, but within the next decade most of us will be reading the latest novel on a palm-held device. This will make the concept of dog-earing a page rather obsolete, but then again dogs can go back to keeping their ears in tact.

With the web and all the writing on it, fact checking can be overlooked in the name of speed. "Don't believe everything you read," was never more pertinent than today with the modern blog/first-person tretise from an unknown author pounding the keys from his Apple in Peoria.

Yet, one should not fear that facts are not being checked. Goodness knows most people, especially in this economy, have better things to do than write if they can help themselves. For those of us who must write, obviously we cannot help ourselves. So of course, the last thing we in this latter category care to do is ruin our reputations by going sloppy on the facts.

But what about the teenagers blogging about their classmates or the hungry new reporter eager to land her first scoop? How can we trust that what we read in these instances is the truth? Here's a simple guide: are the articles clean? This means free of misspellings, ripe with good grammar, overflowing with the kind of lucid prose that makes one leap with joy?

Never lept with joy over a brilliantly written sentence? Ah, you're not really living, mate.