I only know Walt Crawford through his left-leaning repartees at LISNews and musings at Cites & Insights. He seems an affable fellow, at least as has been my experience, and is apparently regarded among many library types as something of an aficionado of technology trends. As a former systems librarian I enjoy Walt's "techy" talk at Cites & Insights. But when he meandered off the geek reservation last April with his piece about another piece, What constitutes information? by Michael Nellis he got it wrong. And it's bugged me ever since.

Walt's piece at first glance seems rather innocuous. An invitation to consider Michael Nellis', aka Fang Face, self-inventory for the habitual truth tweaker.

But the point of the discussion is the opening line. Nellis talks about information as an accurate reflection of reality [emphasis mine] then goes on to look at belief systems, facts, disinformation, misinformation, and opinion. People get into trouble when they regard their opinions as facts and when they add disinformation to the mix.

Ironically Walt later warns readers of Fang's propensity to adorn his conjecture about reality, belief systems and opinion with his own ...strongly stated political opinions. Bush supporters are urged to take a pass as well giving new meaning to the term "reality check".

So why mention me? Walt could have just as easily focused his story on Fang's useful commentary and quotations outside the context of my exchange with Fang at LISNews. Unless of course, he was making an implicit endorsement of AlterNet as a peer resource of LexisNexis.

I can only assume my inclusion has some connection to the inference taken in my exchange with Fang that there is an "information resource hierarchy". Perhaps too my beliefs read over the years at LISNews that not all information "seeks to be free" and that information merits the recognition of being a commodity, with all due protections, within the library community. Or that I consider Fang's information weltanschauung of cherry picked and pruned "progressive journalism", free to the plucker, as somehow deserving equivalency with the pricey LexisNexis and its 5600 national publications as nonsense.

This librarian says there is a difference.

Surprisingly Walt doesn't offer a forthright opinion about which, AlterNet or LexisNexis, is the better information source. No mention of exclusion, bias, editorial philosophies, mission statements, non-profit funding sources or workable solutions to aggravating problems as they may happen to skew a reflection of reality. Instead, he leaves me and my LexisNexis to hang in the first paragraph to make over Fang's self-righteous ruminations. He ends his second paragraph with Fang's observation that,

People get into trouble when they regard their opinions as facts and when they add disinformation to the mix.

And I shouldn't regard this as a subtle shot?

Taken from the AlterNet mission statement:

The media marketplace is increasingly dominated by commercial messages, or focused on entertainment at the expense of insightful information. The results of this trend are large gaps in news coverage and diminished public confidence in the media. Although thousands of issue-oriented websites offer outstanding public interest content, too many remain hidden to experienced researchers and casual Internet users.

Without qualified editors [emphasis mine] to evaluate material and make it easier for users to find and act upon it, the public interest information people want and need will continue to be marginalized. By publishing grassroots success stories and inspirational narratives alongside hard-hitting critiques of policies, investigative reports and expert analysis, we emphasize workable solutions to aggravating problems.

And they have a book:

Check out the chorus of leading progressive voices we've brought together in our new book examining the lessons of election 2004. Fight Fox!

Keep in mind, we are working with Fang's benchmark of "reflection of reality" which follows to include Fox hunting and Bush bashing.

In stark contrast, LexisNexis offers no mission statement, editorial selection committee or moral imperative, but rather channels its resources to provide breadth and diversity rather than to pick, parse and print. A true "reflection of reality". But Walt should know this.

Walt should also know that reality represents the totality of real things and events, something anathema to AlterNet's altered reality making. Lastly he should also know that his, Fang's and my prejudices can only be found in one of the two information resources discussed here. Here is where we test the "reflection of reality".

There is no question, LexisNexis is a bonafide information resource. AlterNet, pureed polemic for the armchair researcher.