Thursday, February 03, 2005

No one is going to believe this one

A new study indicates that journalists score significantly higher than the population as a whole on a standardized test designed to measure reactions to ethical dilemmas. Only seminarians and philosophers, medical students, and practicing physicians scored higher.

Why don't I think most non-journalists will believe the results?

Speaking of ethical dilemmas, I'm struggling to find the correct way to refer to the sources of the articles I link to. For example, the article about this study appeared in USA Today. I read about it first on JD Lasica's Media Musings blog. But JD didn't add any commentary in his post, just a link to the USA Today article, and a pointer to I Want Media, where HE first saw the story.

So who do I credit? Ultimately, it was Peter Johnson, the USA Today writer, who made the information about the study available. But I wouldn't have known about it if I didn't read JD's blog. And JD didn't know about it until he visited I Want Media's website. It seems like overkill to link to all three. Furthermore, I could have gone to the researcher's site and linked to their study directly.

I think I will link to the source where I found the information and to the information itself. That way, I credit my source while still giving readers direct access to the information. Any of my readers who choose to click through to my source will see where they got the information. This solution acknowledges the inevitable interrelated chain of links between information on the Net.

If there's a better solution, I'd love to hear about it.