Ever wonder about the veracity of all those chain e-mails that pollute the Internet? Lori Robertson, editor of the Annenberg Political Fact Check site, wrote a terrific piece on the subject back in March. It's very timely in any political season.
Her conclusion, based on the work of the Annenberg site as well as Snopes and Urban Legend, is that the vast majority of the e-mails making claims about politicians are bogus. That doesn't keep them from recurring with a frustrating persistence.
Robertson also offers some key indicators about the relative veracity of such e-mails. Beware, she says, of e-mails that have many spelling errors, use excessive exclamation points and capital letters. Another is any bold assertion that the e-mail is true: "This is NOT a hoax!" Actually, it almost certainly is.
One interesting finding: The more popular the chain e-mail, the less likely is to be true.
We might hope that awareness of such practices might reduce their frequency, but probably not. People who want to believe Barack Obama is a closet Muslim, or that John McCain betrayed his fellow prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton, are likely to go on believing such tripe regardless of any effort to confront them with the truth.
is a blog chain e-mail?
*cracks up at Isabell*
Thank you for saying something, and thanks to Lori Robertson. I've used her site and snopes.com quite a bit. I get so irritated at all the crap flying around through emails.
It only takes a minute to check for the truth. I think though that there's some validity to the notion that we tend to believe what we would like to think the truth is.
ONLEY IFF IT HAS MANNY SPELING ERORS AND CAPITELS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!!
Ever since July 9, Matt McIntyre's hilarious post, I waited patiently for
more comments. But it seems that most people who read this BLOG are
not quite as hell bent for wiping out than the originator, probably, had
expected.
Is Robertson suggesting that we not read or believe popular political ideas because they violate some style taboo?
I don't immediately accept any unsolicited political conclusion presented to me. That is not to say I don't read them to establish merit.
Whether or not any declaration warrants exclamation is always debatable for some, e.g. danger, cold deep swift current.