Here’s a good example why people find it difficult to take bloggers seriously.

A story now appearing on “The Consumerist” blog alleges that some guy named David was unable to purchase a copy of “Guitar Hero World Tour” at a brick-and-mortar Circuit City store due to a computer error accidentally listing the game price as $10,000. Supposedly, Circuit City did not want to sell David the game because admitting the error would make the store look foolish.

“The Consumerist,” a Gawker Media production, promotes itself as a consumer-affairs blog addressing people’s gripes and complaints regarding retailers, companies and corporations. Although editors at The Consumerist are credited with writing some of the posts, they rely mainly on Joe the Shopper (a cousin of Joe the Plumber) to provide stories and do the legwork on them. Given that typical Web writers aren’t professional journalists, there’s potentially plenty of wiggle room between truth and fiction in these accounts.

Consequently, it’s The Consumerist, not Circuit City, that looks foolish right now. The problem with the story is that it seems made up — as if it could have been a stock story written anywhere at any time — because nowhere was it stated the Circuit City’s location or explain who “David” actually is.

In other words, it lacks the crucial details that give a report of this nature credibility and accuracy.

Furthermore, The Consumerist’s story notes as high as the second paragraph that David launched one of the blog’s famous “executive e-mail carpet bombs” at Circuit City in response to this alleged sales snafu and immediately sent a carbon copy of it back to the Consumerist — suggesting that launching the attack was more important than credibility itself.

(Actually, the original story by The Consumerist gave no location, while the update at story’s end said to have come from David refers only to “the Memphis stores and surrounding areas.” David adds that the whole situation ended well, and a Circuit City manager “apologized profusely,” apparently before the carpet bomb was necessary.)

This is remarkably poor form for a self-described public-interest publication. The Consumerist has leveled a serious accusation of incompetence and injustice against Circuit City and published it without first publicly verifying the facts of the matter. At the same time, readers of Game Guy regularly claim he has a greater obligation to present clear and accurate information than practically anyone just because he writes for a newspaper’s website.

The reality is that clarity and accuracy are everyone’s responsibility — online or off. If the Consumerist shares that belief, it will be more careful about presenting facts before hurling bombs.