Debunking Internet hoaxes and scams

I'm quoted in today's Chicago Tribune in Maureen Ryan's article, Did you hear the one about men hunting women with paintballs? Lead:

The story had sex, violence and, well, more sex. In other words, the "Hunting for Bambi" controversy was a dream come true for the news media and outraged commentators. Too bad it was a scam.

Because this is as much a story about the recurring phenomenon of Internet hoaxes as it is about the Bambi incident, here are some observations I sent along to the Tribune's reporter:

A week doesn't go by that a relative or friend doesn't send me an e-mail saying they had 'heard this on the Internet' and wondered if it was true. I finally put up a Web page to steer people to hoax-debunking sites that size up rumors that spread on the Net like an unchecked virus. For better or worse (and it's clearly both), the Internet has become another news medium. And we're still flummoxed about what and who we should trust online.

I'm always amazed at the credulity of people who tend to believe something just because they read it on the Internet. We need to fine-tune our BS meters by expressing skepticism each time we come across a far-out story from an unverified source. Over time, the Internet helps us develop reputation filters and circles of trust to help us filter out the nonsense.

Newspapers and television newscasts seem to be abdicating their traditional role of verifying the accuracy and truthfulness of certain stories, and that role has been taken over by a new breed of Web sites that specialize in debunking Internet hoaxes.

For a story like Hunting for Bambi, a story editor at a newspaper or TV station tends to see it as a soft-news feature, a story about what a wacky world we live. They won't commit the resources to tracking down its truthfulness because it's too good to pass up and they don't believe the subject matter warrants serious treatment.

But for Snopes, Urban Legends and other hoax-buster sites, they're in the business of tracking down the credibility of this story. In the years to come, they'll play an increasingly important role in the media landscape.

Some last thoughts:

Two weeks after 9/11, my niece received an email from a friend's aunt's boyfriend, calling for a nationwide boycott of Dunkin Donuts. The basis? The supposed existence of a video showing the Arab owners of a Dunkin Donuts franchise in Lyndhurst, N.J., cheering the attack on the World Trade Center, a supposed sighting of the owner of a Dunkin Donuts store in Cedar Grove, N.J., burning the American flag, and a customer who allegedly saw a U.S. flag on the floor covered with Arabic writing in a Dunkin Donuts store in Little Falls, N.J. I told my niece the stories were obvious fabrications at a time when terrorist jitters and a hint of xenophobia were in the air.

In this age of lightning-speed hoaxes, I'd like to see newspapers and magazines publish a recurring 'reality check' column. Report on the rumors floating around cyberspace, their genesis, and their level of truthfulness or fabrication.

Later: Ken reminds us to Check Your Hoax-o-Meter.

First chapters of new books

The New York Times: First Chapters page delivers opening pages of hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books. I've been advocating this for a long time.

This is a good start, though I can't understand why publishers are squeamish about delivering what they promise. This excerpt from Wired: A Romance, for example, offers only the first four grafs.

Thanks to Susan H. for the pointer.

The Press: Time for a New Era?

I'm not quite sure what the Jayson Blair scandal has to do with "objectivity" -- does subjectivity somehow equal fabrication? -- but former Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley has an opinion piece that I generally agree with: Major media should stop wearing "objectivity" on their sleeves. Still, I wish Bartley's essay outlined a philosophy to replace the flamed-out wreckage of objectivity. Certainly fairness and balance -- rather than subjectivity and shallow partisanship -- should be among the principles undergirding the traditional news media's core precepts.

AOL 9.0: A year too late?

Susan Mernit asks: Did AOL 9.0 come out a year too late?

Interactive innovations in journalism

Just got word of this:

Batten Award Finalists Pioneer Novel Interactions

COLLEGE PARK, MD ñ Five newsroom initiatives that used technology in innovative ways to involve people in the news have been selected as the first finalists in the new Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.

The $10,000 winner and two $2,500 runners-up will be announced Sept. 15 at the Batten Awards Symposium in Washington, D.C., according to Jan Schaffer, director of J-LAB: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, the University of Maryland center that sponsors the awards. The symposium will showcase the winnersí efforts and other journalism innovations around the country.

ìThese newsrooms have really risen to the challenge of doing good, fundamental storytelling in fresh, exciting ways,î said Bryan Monroe, chairman of the Batten Awards Advisory Board and Knight Ridder assistant vice president/ news. ìThey should serve as models for other newsrooms, big and small, showing that all it takes to create innovative journalism is a great idea, a bit of time, and, most of all, the will and the leadership to make great things happen.î

Visit www.j-lab.org to view these finalists and other notable entries: :

ï Minnesota Public Radioís ìBudget Balancer,î a 19-page Web game that challenged users to fix the stateís $4.2 billion deficit by cutting programs and raising taxes without spending too much political capital; 7,000 visitors submitted 11,000 budgets.

ï The Chicago Tribuneís ìWhen Evil Struck America,î a CD-ROM time capsule distributed to more than 1 million subscribers on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks. Interactive and easy to navigate, it boosted single-day street sales of the newspaper by 100,000.

ï The San Francisco Chronicleís ìTwo Centsî project, a ìvirtual man-on-the-streetî effort involving a database of more than 1,450 ìfield correspondents,î residents who contribute and react to articles, opinion pieces and a standing op-ed column.

ï MSNBC.comís ìThe Big Picture,î a sophisticated series of in-depth guided tours on three subjects ñ Iraq, the 2002 elections, and the Oscars ñ that integrated video, audio, text, interactive polls and games into playful, yet informative, multimedia packages intended to give the big-picture overview on the topics.

ï VillageSoup.com for its community media Web sites that are delivering homespun news and information to three Maine towns, along with interactive virtual tours and e-mails of scenic postcards.

NYT front pages on file

Ryan posts the secret to digging up digital images of the New York Times's print front pages going back 18 months.

The Road to Babylon

From the August issue of Harper's magazine: The Road to Babylon: Searching for targets in Iraq, by Lewis H. Lapham.

War inspires dueling decks

This was a fun piece from yesterday's Merc on dueling playing card decks with polar political views of the war in Iraq. A Catholic school teacher in San Jose has sold 10,000 decks of her "Operation Hidden Agenda'' playing cards.

A Texas recall?

Hmm. Is there any way for Texans to recall Gov. Rick Perry and the other jokers who are trying to gerrymander Texas' Congressional districts?

Back to business

Both the Monterey Aquarium and Capitola were great fun. Finally getting my summer tan. (Here's a beach scene from last summer.) Thanks for the birthday wishes. Now back to journalism business.

File-sharers show anger, remorse

Amy Harmon in today's Times: Subpoenas Sent to File-Sharers Prompt Anger and Remorse.