Last week, independent analysis cast doubt on claims made by two prestigious information-gathering organizations. One incident you are probably familiar with. The community of bloggers presented credible evidence that documents used by CBS to support a news story about President Bush's national guard service were forgeries. The second instance, though potentially as important, received far less attention, at least in the English language media. Professors Roberto Rigobon of MIT and Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University presented credible evidence that the results of the Venezuelan recall election, declared clean by the Carter Center, had been systematically altered.
Initial commentary on the CBS story has focused on the blogosphere versus big-media. An even wider underlying dynamic becomes apparent when the Bush documents and the Venezuelan recall are considered together. The story is not just about the output of bloggers; it is about the inputs that analysts are able to utilize. The analysis of Charles Johnson that cast doubt on the authenticity of the Bush documents was made possible by the existence of pdf-format document sharing. Professors Rigobon and Hausmann analyzed election returns at the polling center and machine levels. They compared the returns to results from exit polls and the signature gathering phase of the referendum, and found effects not consistent with a fair election. Their timely analysis was possible because of the Internet's ability to transfer large, quantitative data sets. |