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Crying
Wolf Amid Real Disasters
Like
everyone else with lim-ited time and energy and attention
span, I cherish having trusted sources of information, organizations
or individuals whom I know enough about, have followed their
track record enough, that when they come out with a pronouncement,
a last-minute call-to-action, a judgment call, I can be reasonably
sure that I’ll agree with them. It’s the only possible way
to keep up in the information age. Honestly, it’s the only
way it’s ever been for anyone who wanted to have opinions
on more than two or three issues of the day.
On the other hand, in my professional role as a journalist,
it’s my job to ask questions of even those sources I’d be
inclined to just trust in my private life. And when you do
that, inevitably the comfort zones come tumbling down.
I don’t mind the reminders that I sometimes disagree with
just about anybody—that’s just a verification that my mind
still works independently. What bothers me is the constant
revelations that there’s practically no one I can trust to
not wander over the line from legitimate persuasion on behalf
of their righteous cause into misleading spin, inaccurate
exaggerations, or serious omissions of relevant information.
I suppose this too should not be a shock. I can’t claim that
I know that in the heat of panic or possibility I haven’t
done the same. But it is saddening, because it poisons the
whole well of democratic citizen activism.
Take the upcoming Supreme Court elections in the Capital Region.
A concerned citizen in Albany recently noticed that Tom Marcelle,
a right-wing conservative lawyer who has worked with the New
York Family Planning Council (think support for the Federal
Marriage Amendment and hysterical opposition to transgender
inclusion in the Albany County human rights ordinance), might
have a quiet shot at one of the three judgeships up in this
election. Justifiably concerned that this was going to slip
under the radar of many voters, our honorable citizen sent
out an e-mail message to friends, family, and colleagues,
which spread quickly and was taken up by the likes of the
RFK Democrats.
The act, and the end conclusion, are unimpeachable. But some
of the content of the message is iffy. It lists a series of
conservative Christian or right-leaning organizations that
it says Marcelle is “affiliated” with. From a search of their
sites, nearly all of them seem only to mention one of two
cases he argued in their news sections, which hardly rises
to the level of affiliation. I would hate to be considered
affiliated with every place that has mentioned things I’ve
written, or even every place that has mentioned them and agreed
with me.
There are those who may consider this nit-picking, but a reputation
for honesty is not a thing to be taken lightly. I subscribe
to the newsletter of FactCheck.org (made famous by Vice President
Cheney’s double whammy of misquoting them and getting their
Web address wrong in last year’s VP debate). FactCheck.org
is about as nonpartisan as an organization gets, which is
not to say that I always agree with its staff’s conclusions,
but as the name suggests, they are about facts and willing
to criticize anyone who misuses them. I think they are doing
a supremely valuable service.
But I notice, for example, as I’ve seen deconstructions and
criticisms of MoveOn and Win Without War ads go by (though
by and large they have been charged with less egregious falsehoods
than many of their political opponents), that my inclination
to contribute to running those ads goes down. Most recently,
a big ad in USA Today accusing the administration of
lying about the war (which I think they did) takes some of
its quotes fairly badly out of context. It becomes more difficult
to support something when you know you may end up having to
distance yourself from a distortion.
A similar problem is one of sustained drama. As after the
flurry of high-pitched opposition to the inscrutable John
Roberts, I find it’s hard to convince myself to panic about
the current nominee to the Supreme Court, even though I know
intellectually that he is much worse. This is not exactly
the same as advocates playing fast and loose with the facts,
but it’s related—a self-defeating “everything is priority
number one because people won’t take action otherwise” reaction
that is also misleading in the end in terms of level of urgency.
It’s self-defeating because people eventually tune out exhortations
of a crisis if they hear them every day, just like the priority
color tags on e-mail get ignored unless they are used exceedingly
sparingly.
Of course the message to be taken away from the crying-wolf
problem is that concerned citizens might want to figure out
how to spare some energy for the important-but-not-crisis-level
causes and actions, to provide incentive for the advocates
to give us more accurate information.
And the message about misleading, imprecise, or wrong statements
from well-meaning people is that it will make us stronger,
not weaker, to call each other on our sloppiness. Good intentions
don’t get you to the moral high ground.
—Miriam
Axel-Lute
maxel-lute@metroland.net
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