Unrestricted Web Publishing

According to Nicholas C. Burbules, "....the Web is not an ordinary reference system; it poses some unique and, in many respects, unprecedented conditions that complicate the task of sorting out dependable from undependable information--and even complicates the notion that we have a clear sense of that distinction. Burbules is a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign with the Department of Educational Policy Studies.

For this weeks blog, my goal was to find an article from Time Magazine and challenge the validity of the sources referenced in the article. According to Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources, developing a keen sense of the credibility of sources, based on such clues as connection of author to the subject, audience, source of publication, and documentation of supporting evidence,  can also help you evaluate print and other types of sources.

The article I chose to challenge the validity of its sources was called U.N. Launches ‘Unprecedented’ Mission to Combat Ebola by Alexandra Sifferlin, again pulled from Time Magazine. The first thing that I decided to do was to find out some information about the author and her background. According to her profile on Time, she is a graduate from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism. I also checked LinkedIn to see if her profile pulled up, and it did. According to LinkedIn, Sifferlin began her career as a journalist in 2009, working with several magazines, covering a variety of topics.

According the article, the UN has indicated that cases of Ebola hit 5,335. I did some additional research to see if there were any more figures regarding the outbreak. I found that a Bloomberg article indicates the according to the CDC ( U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the worst case scenario has the number of cases at 500,000. An article on CNN.com quotes their numbers from the World Heath Organization. The WHO indicates that across three regions, there are 909 confirmed cases and another 414 probable or suspected.

My original article from Time, indicates that the death toll from the Ebola virus has reached  2,622  in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea regions alone. The Bloomberg article has the death toll at 1,618, and this is according to the Emergency Operations Center. Lastly, the article on CNN. com has the toll at 729. That number is out of the 1323 confirmed or possibly infected. That number covers the regions of Sierra Leone and Liberia and Nigeria.

So, What did I find out? I found out that, although the numbers across all three articles differ, there is not much of a gap to raise a flag. Not only that, but the sources used in all three articles are for the most part are reliable and trustworthy. We are all familiar with the CDC, the UN as well as the World Heath Organization as they are the sources often used when it comes to heath related statistics.  I also learned that a little extra work makes a lot of difference when it comes to validating information.  Again, sources are more credible when there is a connection to the author of the subject, source of publication, and documentation of supporting evidence.

References

Chen, C., Greeley, B., & Gilblom, K. (2014, September 20). Ebola Worst-Case Scenario Has More Than 500,000 Cases - Yahoo Finance. Retrieved from http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ebola-worst-case-scenario-more-040100868.html;_ylt=AwrTWfw7Gx5UK34ACRnQtDMD

Cullinane, S., & Thompson, N. (2014, September 18). Deadliest ever outbreak of Ebola virus: What to know - CNN.com. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/ebola-virus-explainer/index.html

Sifferlin, A. (2014, September 18). U.N. Launches New Mission to Combat Ebola. Retrieved from http://time.com/3399532/united-nations-ebola-mission/