The Two Questions Everyone Should Ask When Surfing the Web

[Commentary] Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow taught me the importance of two questions that now have special resonance in our digital lives. How do you know that? What does that mean?

The first question deals with what journalists or law enforcement officers might term a credible source. Where does what you are reading or viewing come from? Is it based on a reliable first-hand account or something someone relayed in a “game” of Telephone? If facts are presented, where did they come from? If an opinion is advanced, what is the basis for it? The second question assumes that this initial credibility bar has been met. It focuses on what the source was trying to convey. Is this something to be taken at face value? Or is it communicating a different meaning by using ambiguous words that are subject to multiple interpretations? And if so, which of these meanings is the most plausible one? Of course, this question also is useful as a snark filter, since so much of what we respond to and share with others is ironic, or as many would say, post-ironic.