Having just returned from the Illinois Park and Rec conference where marketing expert Jodi Rudick extolled the virutes of weblogs and the need for park districts to maintain that type of online presence in order to offer a more participatory, user-centered experience for our customers, I find myself facing a moral and ethical dilemma of sorts. As a writer, I value the Freedom of Speech and the power of the written word. Yet in all the excitement of promoting citizen journalists and letting each and every person tell his/her personal story/stories in a very public way, I have to wonder whose truth is truest...if there are no experts, so to speak, and everyone is equal in this new virtual world of writers, how do you know what's real and what isn't...what's just and unjust...what's fact and what's fiction? When I asked that of my techno-savvy husband, he simply smiled and said, 'Yup, we're just one step closer to The Matrix." Definitely food for thought and I need time to digest.
