Or, maybe they are! Or maybe Glenn Beck is right and George Soros and Barack Obama are organizing the Islamic Caliphate to kidnap all of us and throw us into concentration camps and/or ovens!!! WE DON'T KNOW DO WE??? IS THERE ANY PROOF THIS ISN'T HAPPENING????



Sigh.

A diary at the top of the Rec list right now features an article from www.examiner.com. A quick Google search tells me this about www.examiner.com:

http://en.wikipedia.org/...

Examiner.com is a media company based in Denver, Colorado, that operates a network of local news websites, allowing "pro–am contributors" to share their city-based knowledge on a blog-like platform

In other words....it's a blog! It's a media aggregate site. It's a open source platform where pro-am (aka "pro-amateur") pseudo-journalists get paid by the click. And those pro-am pseudo-journalists probably know that a story with a sensational headline like "'Occupy' crackdowns coordinated with federal law enforcement officials!!!!1!!" is gonna get some clicks!

The article has NO evidence, other than ONE "anonymous source". That does not pass the sniff test in terms of journalistic integrity in any major publication, or Daily Kos for that matter. I can't help but notice that no other outlets are running with this story. So, why are we?

I come to Daily Kos because I think it has some of the finest writing on the internet. I use this as my primary news source. I trust the system of community moderation to separate the real from the fake. It does not seem to be working today. It's not just this one diary either-this whole place is rampant with wild speculation and CT.

I understand that people are upset about what happened this morning. I am too. I'm furious, and I want answers. But when we take questionable journalism like this at face value, we are doing ourselves and OWS a grave disservice. And when we have people in the comments scared of being thrown into FEMA camps and even floating the suggestion of embarking on a coup (!!!) we are veering on World Nut Daily territory.

Seriously, everyone just take a deep breath. Check your sources. Really, we are better than this.

That's all.