Skepticism is a Virtue

Michael Gartner, journalist, lawyer, and former head of NBC News suggests asking yourself the following ten questions as you read, watch, and surf:

1. Is the guest expert being paid?

2. Who posted the information? Unless this is clear, it's useless.

3. Who stated the information? Anonymous quotes don't count.

4. What was the question? In any poll, stop reading or listening if the reporter doesn't give the wording of the question, the sample size, and the date of the poll.

5. What is the answer? If an allegation is made in a story, is the reply included in the story as well? If not, it's one-sided.

6. Why should I believe you? Any opinion piece is simply that, an opinion unless the writer has incontestable facts.

7. How can I believe you? If the reporter's on a talk show, touting partisan politics, how can he/she be writing a column next week that supposed to be straight news?

8. Does anyone believe this? Absolutely ignore person-on-the-street interviews or focus group stories that purport to speak for the state or for the nation.

9. Are the words loaded? I "say," you, "allege." My friends are "associates," yours are cronies," etc.

10. Do I really care? Because the headline is large doesn't mean the issue is important.

Source: Michael Gartner

Conquer Your Filing Cabinets

Studies show that 80% of the items in a typical file cabinet are never used again! That means you could pare down at least 50 percent of what you're retaining. You don't even need to go that far, however; try to pare down 20 percent.

Why do you need to pare down? In a society that throws information at us at an ever-increasing rate, it's a given that more is coming. Condition your mind that this is so.

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Hooked on the Web

It is hard to believe that the following article appeared three ago, since the prominence and lure of the Web has increased markedly

Hooked on the Web: Help Is on the Way
By Sarah Kershaw c New York Times

The waiting room for Hilarie Cash's practice has the look and feel of many a therapist's office, with soothing classical music, paintings of gentle swans and colorful flowers and on the bookshelves stacks of brochures on how to get help.

But along with her patients, Dr. Cash, who runs Internet/Computer Addiction Services here in the city that is home to Microsoft, is a pioneer in a growing niche in mental health care and addiction recovery. The patients, including Mike, 34, are what Dr. Cash and other mental health professionals call onlineaholics. They even have a diagnosis: Internet addiction disorder.

These specialists estimate that 6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction, and they are rushing to treat it. Yet some in the field remain skeptical that heavy use of the Internet qualifies as a legitimate addiction, and one academic expert called it a fad illness.

Skeptics argue that even obsessive Internet use does not exact the same toll on health or family life as conventionally recognized addictions. But, mental health professionals who support the diagnosis of Internet addiction say, a majority of obsessive users are online to further addictions to gambling or pornography or have become much more dependent on those vices because of their prevalence on the Internet.

But other users have a broader dependency and spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games.