Is this news source reliable?

Is it possible for Harvard to survive now without aid?

Vanity Fair is not a news magazine, but it probably has some reasonable standards of vetting on an issue like this.

I’ve heard that Harvard lost a lot of its endowment last year – about ⅓ – but it’s still the richest school in the country. I would verify with another source before trusting a blog.

Well, first of all they didn’t post a link to the article that supposedly came out in Vanity Fair. Second, any “article” that uses the “f” word lacks credibility in my opinion. Last, it’s just a blog. If this was something I was concerned with I’d do more research.

And what @Val123 said.

All university endowments are “f’ed.

@janbb Here is the Vanity Fair link. http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/harvard200908 It does not show all of the story. That is on the other pages. There are 6 of them.

As a rule, blogs are not reliable. People can say whatever they want. Things like Vanity Fair, large publications, have reasonable standards for fact checking. They might not be as uptight about it as newspapers, but they do make sure that they’re not printing pure crap. That’s part of the reason they have editors. :)

I’m suspicious about sources that use strong language.

The Awl is written by former staff members of www.gawker.com. Their principals appear to have a credible journalistic backgrounds. But they do aim for the waggish, tongue-in-cheek approach to a story.