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This page features links to top stories about Reality Check as they appear, as well as other coverage and our press releases. If you'd like to get your local newspaper or news program to report on this site and help get the word out, please contact us first.
Top Stories
Resurrecting
a Dying Art, by Andrew Rice
Wired
News, January
22, 2000
....In fact, the chaos of the
bulletin board and the chat room can have a profoundly negative
effect upon the overall quality of conversation, a new study concludes.
But when the talk moves into a less freewheeling environment,
the level of the debate seems to improve....The
study
was conducted using Web
Lab's innovative Reality Check discussion group, which
was created to provide a discussion space about President Clinton's
impeachment hearings.
Webville: Y-Life's intrepid traveler
visits a few of the net's many communities
Yahoo! Internet Life,
May 1999
"Our Town Hall": Self-styled political pundits looking for life
after Monicagate should consider visiting Reality Check [www.reality-check.org].
Created by the now-independent founder of the PBS documentary
series P.O.V., this site coordinates nearly 500 topical message
boards, in which armchair senators participate in open dialogues
or small groups. The forced intimacy seems to be working: Amazingly
enough, the 12,000-plus posts lack the rambling tone typical of
most newsgroups (that is, with the exception of one member's screed
on a military coup against the White House). There's even been
one marriage proposal, which begs the quintessential town hall
question: "Boxers or briefs?"
'Reality Check' sets rules as it aims for quality talk, not aimless banter, by Kevin Kawamoto
The Freedom Forum, December 29, 1998
Unfettered political speech, whether in front of City Hall or in front of a personal computer monitor, is broadly protected by the First Amendment. But one of the key frustrations of participating in online discussion groups on the Internet - and there are literally thousands to choose from - has been the virtual absence of meaningful discussion and the preponderance of name-calling, mud-slinging and often irrational, polarized debates ...
Impeachment Discussions on the 'Net, by Margot Adler (an unofficial transcript archived on reality-check.org)
Morning Edition, December 18, 1998
NPR's Margot Adler reports on what people are saying about impeachment over the Internet. You can listen to the piece in Real Audio from the NPR site.
Hocus Pocus, by Hillary Rosner
The Village Voice, December 9, 1998
... the use of the Web for focus groups and more in-depth opinion-gathering raises some complex issues that get at the heart of life online and have implications that extend far beyond marketing. "There's a culture that tends to exist [online], an anonymous voyeurism, and that becomes the basis of most of our interactions," says Barry Joseph, supervising producer at Web Lab, a nonprofit "online laboratory" that is attempting to create a workable model for Web-based forums. "As a result, most of the online forums tend to have structures that work against people having meaningful dialogues" ...
Unspinning the Media, by Steve Silberman
Wired News, November 5, 1998
Had enough of Monica mania? NY's Web Lab opens a site to give netsurfers a place to dig beneath the headlines and uncover their own stories ...
Other Coverage
Site of the Day
ZDNet, January 29, 1999
Reality Check is a kind of online experiment--aiming to counter the effect of media saturation and model a new kind of public discourse on public issues. Like impeachment. You can join in a small group discussion or be a spectator...
Web Lab launches Reality Check, an alternative dialogue for the Impeachment Hearings (this article archived on reality-check.org)
IndustryScoop, November 23, 1998
Reality Check is a non-partisan, experimental Web site designed to re-energize democratic discourse around the significant issues of our day. While the media can help define our relationships with news events, during media feeding frenzies this relationship becomes distorted beyond recognition ...
Just the Facts, by Kim McDaniel
The Salt Lake Tribune, November 20, 1998
The threat of media saturation often intrudes on discussions of hot-button issues, even among friends or co-workers. Where is a person to go to get an honest, open-minded discussion? ...
Escudriñar a la TV: Diálogo abierto entre medios tradicionales e Internet, by Raúl Trejo Delarbre (this article archived on reality-check.org)
Bitniks, November 19, 1998
(in Spanish)
Chers Bill, Monica et Kenneth
Branchez Vous, November 11, 1998
(also carried by Yahoo! France)
We must not be deceived by the media, as they are professionally prone to exaggeration. A new American site, Reality Check, proposes to keep a cool head, to reflect and to allow us our own opinions on the various dramatic events arising on this planet ...
Online Culture: Reality Check
Netsurfer Digest, November 8, 1998
Reality Check is newly dedicated to "challenging dialogues about the issues and events of our time...." It wants to counter the effects of media saturation on our perception of public issues ...
Net Gets a Reality Check
ZDTV Internet Tonight, November 5, 1998
(The ZDTV cable program featured Reality Check as a news story with a 20 second reader and shots from the site.)
Thursday, an online discussion forum called Reality Check debuted with promises of the substantive, issue-oriented conversations often lost on a Net seemingly filled with hasty attacks and anonymous voyeurism ...
Press Release
Web Lab Launches Reality Check
Web Lab, November 18, 1998
Reality Check is not a place to rehash partisan politics or obsess over the details of another media explosion that has overwhelmed us all. Instead, it's a place to sort out what we think about an event (or a set of events) that is so heavily covered by the media that we've lost track of what's important ...
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