Agence France Presse (AFP) recently announced that reporters are banned from using Wikipedia and Facebook as sources. These and other virtual sources are not permitted because they lack trustworthiness. Reporters can use these sources if they fact-check with another source.

I missed this last week, but there was an issue in the beghinning of the month where photos of Benazir Bhutto's son Bilawi were published on Facebook but turned out to be fakes. Before the discovery of the hoax, however, a number of news organizations had published the images.

The online world has a lot to say about this -- and I must say, how disappointing is it that there are so many blogs out there that will post articles and links with no commentary at all? In any case, it seems, for the most part, they are outraged that new and social media outlets aren't seen as credible.

I am more inclined to agree with the AFP than the bloggers, I am sad to say. Too many people who use Facebook and Wikipedia aren't journalists, don't hold themselves to the same standards and ethics that journalists do (at least we hope they do), and may not fact-check the information they publish. Snopes exists for a reason, doesn't it?