A partial answer to David:

1) If the reports of stolen artifacts were so wildly inaccurate, perhaps
we'd best be skeptical about reports of vandalism as well.  Or at least
wait until further evidence comes in.  Did the senior staff of the Iraqi
Museum -- Ba'athist party loyalists, as I understand -- vandalize their own
museum after removing the artifacts?  I have no evidence of that, but at
this point, nothing coming out if Iraq would surprise me.

2) As long as the television show in question pertains to a museum-related
topic, I am inclined to view it charitably -- no more a spam, really, than
linking to a newspaper article on the issue.

Partial answers to Roy:

1) Amen!

2) I'm not sure that this incident will have all that great an impact on
the museum field, particularly in the West.  The Director of the Iraq
Museum -- as noted, a Saddam loyalist -- lied, apparently to make the US
look bad.  Will this mean museum directors in North America, Europe and
elsewhere will suddenly be seen as lying political lackeys as well?  I
doubt it.  It seems just as likely, perhaps, that museums could receive
*more* professional support to prevent this sort of thing being repeated.
Probably.  But one could argue that the counter-proposal -- that this
incident will discredit the museum profession -- is probably excessively
pessimistic.

3) Yes, news agencies are businesses.  They are (supposed to be) in the
business of telling the truth.  Yeah, they see themselves as being in the
business of making money, but the consumers go to them for factual
reporting.  No one expects perfection, but the news media seems be falling
paticularly short these days.  It's not that one story got a small detail
wrong.  In this instance, pretty much EVERY major news source reported a
story that was WAYYYY off-base.  And very few, to my knowledge, have come
forward to correct it.  Is this the result of sloppy reporting?  Political
bias?  The rush for a scoop?  Probably a little of all three, and other
reasons as well.  Much has been made of the role of the Internet and web
logs in exposing this, and other, errors in the mainstream news.
Overstated?  Perhaps.  Though I personally first heard the truth there.
People are taking news-gathering, dissemination and commentary into their
own hands, and apparently starting to have an effect on the mainstream
media.

One of the strengths of museums is that we take our time -- years, if
necessary -- to get the story right.  But I will leave you with this
thought: what happens when web logs and other new media start moving onto
our turf?  How will museums change and react when the power to collect and
disseminate our kind of information is available to anybody with a modem?
Impossible, you say?  Tell it to Howell Raines.

Rich Faron actually raised this issue at the NAME issues lunch at the AAM
convention a couple years back.  At the time, nobody understood or believed
him.  Yeah, so people have personal web pages and send each other
information over e-mail -- so what?  Well, I think we are seeing the
beginning of "so what" unfold in these various stories where the web
community seems to be ahead of the mainstream media.

I have no answers.  Just something to ponder.

-- Gene Dillenburg

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