An Indian reader of Flat Earth News sent the following message, which is interesting partly because it traces the problems of unchecked churnalism to India but also because of what it suggests about the weaknesses behind the current naive enthusiasm for bloggers as a source of reliable information.

"Just wanted to flag up an interesting story that illustrates your point. A
blog, http://penpricks.blogspot.com/ written by a journalist in Goa, India
put out  a false story about a German war criminal being arrested in the
resort state as a test. Predictably, the state's rags and even some of
India's leading newspapers carried the story, without checking the facts.
The blog has more details."