I haven't heard back from the company representing the security guard in Tom Hawks story. Interestingly, in my public journalism class we discussed the possibility of not entirely trusting the blogger's account of what happened.
The idea that blogging extends journalistic storytelling beyond traditional formats is complex. Could Hawk's posting of this incident be considered a type of public journalism? We couldn't assume that we would learn of the incident on the nightly news, the radio, or in the San Francisco Chronicle.
In this age of instant, information is a commodity that must be accounted for by the context in which it is collected, presented, and distributed. In short, we need to be skeptical.
In this case, I read an e-mail from the National Press Photographers Association list-serv about the post, read it, and decided to comment on the information. But how can I be confident that what I am reading and responding to is legitimate?
How are people able to trust the sources of information? How do we know that the ideas, information, news, and facts are true in an age when anyone and everyone can self-publish on the web?