Bullshit! See it; know it!

Last week (June 7) I wrote about the rumor that American Fire-Fighter Team Chiefs were being fired (let go, demoted, bypassed ... you choose the expression) because they had spanish-only speaking team members and they, the Supervisors, could not communicate with them in their native language.

Titled "What we have here ... is a failure, to communicate!" I made the points that:

• The issue was not current, but several years old;
• The original article was biased in being written by a reporter who failed to check the facts with multiple sources;
• And the primary source was a 'crew chief' who was demoted not because of inadequate language skills, but because of being unqualified for the position.
• Multiple other sources supported the statements of the Oregon Department of Forestry, in the person of spokesman Rod Nichols.
• No other sources were available which supported the charges in the original Portland Television Channel KATU article.

My sources were easily found on the Internet, and consisted primarily of the legitimate spokesmen for the Oregon Department of Forestry, Rod Nichols, and sources quoting Mr. Nichols.

Since that time, I found a comment from Mr. Nichols. (I invite you to go to the cited link and read his comments, where he very clearly describes the difficulty in defending ones self or ones employer against unsubstantiated rumor.)

The thing is, as I mentioned before, the MainStream Medis -- despite it's protestations that it is a more legitimate news-source because its published articles are subject to "multiple layers of checks and balances".

In this case, we see that this supposed oversight protection of Truth and Reality does not necessarily exist. Even the most junior reporter in a local news-gathering environment is often not subject to even the most cursory review and confirmation process befoe being broadcast.

And we, in our trust and naivete, are inclined to accept their published stories as fact without the most elementary attempt to determine the veracity of their assertions.

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The steps I took to confirm or disavow the 'facts' presented in the original story ... and in the resulting Fox news broadcast video ... are not beyond anyone who is sufficiently Internet-savvy to access and read the story. I simply plugged in the basic story key-words to GOOGLE, and pushed the SEND button. I was presented with a plethora of hits and it was up to me to find those which were no more than second-echelon sources. (First echelon is the Story; second echelon is the "Story about the Story", or either rebuttals or conformations of the information contained in the original story.)

It's not more difficult than referring to WWW.DICTIONARY.COM to determine if the word you use is the correct word for the meaning you intended. It should be the basic minimum of background checking for anyone who desires to forward what seems to be controversial statement.
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The purpose of this article is to encourage everyone who reads it to check the facts before you forward that tittilating YouTube video to your friends and family.

The folks who write to me have often sent me Urban Legend warnings about computer Urban Legends ("Forward this email to all of your friends, and Microsoft will pay you money for each person who receives it") which cause you to proliferate lies to your friends and family; and "nuisance viruses" ("The Oregon Forestry Department is firing Fire Crew Chiefs Because They Don't Speak Spanish").

Because the basic premise is not true, the only effect is the proliferation of junk mail and often some people become upset because they honestly believe that the cited situation ... either positive or negative, is true.

In fact, a minimum amount of research will completely dispell your belief in the concept. But instead of investing that time and effort to research the Legend, the proposition is proliferated to many other people.

Often the perceptions of the general public causes damage to well-intentioned publics works, such as the Oregon Department of Forestry.

If nothing else, it not only upsets the recipients of these Viral emails, but it encourages them to write to the appropriate agency to speak out against a situation which does not, in fact, exist.

My advise to you is that if you receive an email which claims to represent a great Public Wrong, research it yourself before you forward it to your unsuspecting friends and family.

One of my primary sources to determine the veracity of a rumor is Snopes.

In this case, no results were found in SNOPES.COM, so it is obvious that SNOPES is not the only reliable source to confirm or dispute a rumor.

However a simple search on "oregon forestry spanish" to GOOGLE returns sufficient hits (302,000) to satisfy the moste determined searcher.
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So, before you sent that email to your friends, I encourage you to do your own preliminary research. This may not be sufficient for you to definitively determine that an assertion is or is not true; however, it may help you determine whether a question is absolutely true, or that it is sufficientl controversial for you to forward the question to other folks.

After all, their research skills may not be any better than yours, but they may be more determined to get to the bottom of the question. And if they provide evidence that the assertion which you have proclaimed is not reasonable, won't you feel silly to have forwarded it to everybody you know?

And well you should!