Oh no, they didn't!

Village Voice is one of the great iconoclastic news outlets today. They made their mark covering the news stories that other more reputable publications felt were not "fit to print." One look at the photo essay on the "Idiotarod" (no that is not a misspelling), tells you all you need to know about the fun that group has.

Well, looks like they got their hands caught in the cookie jar when it comes to padding their online usage stats.

Ed Kohler from thedeets.com, just broke the story about two Digg users who have been systematically "Digg-ing" front page articles from all the Village Voice publications. (If you don't know what a Digg is, Ed gives a great summary in the article).

Why should we care? Digg is designed to reflect the reader community's appreciation of content. By artificially inflating the Diggs, it becomes the social networking equivalent of hijacking a neilson ratings enabled TV and locking the channel on Fox News... basically, no one ends up with a true picture of the world.

Writers should not make up phony aliases and comment on their own blogs and news orgs shouldn't fake Digg their own content.

Shame on you VV! I expected more from a culture savvy organization. Start flying right or I shall taunt you again!

(now back to that Riker's Fight Club article...)