The government claims that withholding information in times of war is for the protection of the public. That may or may not be true. One consequence of providing too little information is that the sensational becomes perfectly plausible. "Absent of any reliable information, any information will do," said Al Tompkins, a professor at Poynter Institute, a journalism training center in St. Petersburg.
After Sept. 11 the perception of what's possible has been turned upside down, said Tompkins. "Who would have guessed that we'd have Anthrax in our mail?" he said. "Who would guess that a tabloid and Tom Daschle would be victims?"
Nobody. And who would speculate that the whole thing is really a plot by the U.S. government to spark war in the Middle East? Apparently, lots of people.
Last week an e-mail message arrived in the boxes of three Weekly Planet writers. The subject line read, "Interesting story." Depending on your susceptibility to conspiracy theories, it lived up to the description. The article was published online by the Veritas News Service with the headline, "When U.S. Joint Chiefs Planned Terror Attacks on America." It's the sort of thing that's so sensational it can easily be dismissed, but in the current climate of terrorism and war, Anthony Lorenzo, a student at Hillsborough Community College wasn't sure what to make of it.
When it comes to news sources, you shouldn't have to guess whether or not the story is true, said Tompkins. There are some basic questions you can ask that will help you to determine if the story is written by someone who's in the know or someone who's out of touch with reality.
Treat what you read, particularly on the Internet, with the same skepticism that you would if you were being told an incredible story verbally, said Tompkins. Verbally even juicy gossip is subject to verification. You want to know where the information came from and exactly what proof was provided that it was true. The same should be applied to the news, Internet sites and conspiracy e-mails.
"The question always is, "How do they know what they know?'" said Tompkins. "If there is no source, you can assume that somebody made it up."
The consumer should also question the agenda of the person spreading the information. When it comes to domestic news, most of us are pretty good at sniffing out agendas, said Tompkins. If a Democrat makes a disparaging comment about a Republican we assume, if only subconsciously, that his or her motivation is political unless we have solid proof of the veracity of the statement.
"Just because it's international doesn't mean that the sifting should stop," said Tompkins. "People leak information usually for one reason and that's that it helps them."
The article that Lorenzo sent to Weekly Planet looked like it came from a reputable news outlet. It had a dateline and referenced some government sources. However, a closer inspection revealed that the mailing was not very credible. Wanting to know just who we were dealing with, we did a search for Veritas News Service. It turned out that Veritas was founded by William Cooper, a tax protestor and militia figure who was killed last month in an altercation with police. The late Timothy McVeigh reportedly found Cooper to be a valid source of information. We disagree.
Along with the article, Lorenzo got another e-mail that referenced several news sources that supposedly proved the government is out to get us. "Activism other than demanding a 9-11 inquiry is "putting make-up on a corpse,'" the subject line said. It implies that the President's efforts to keep some presidential records sealed, the unknown origin of the anthrax virus sent through the mail and the United States' past history of lying to the public add up to the theory that the U.S. government may have planned the Sept. 11 attacks. Not all of the sources in the article are unbelievable — one was the George Washington University Web site — but the conclusions that are drawn should make you wonder about the sender's agenda and ability to interpret information. Some other e-mails that Lorenzo has received reference Web sites and foreign sources that he's never heard of, he said. "I can't tell if that's legitimate," said Lorenzo.
Finding out would involve reading reams of information and doing research that's a little beyond the scope of the average layperson. But Lorenzo didn't want to dismiss the information, he said, because it could be true. "You look at the Patriot Act and the things that they're doing now are pretty scary."
It's this sort of news confusion that has led People United for Peace in St. Petersburg to create Operation Infinite Information, a newsletter containing war information, said spokesperson Eric Rubin. "There is no succinct and clear place for people to get information on what's going on with the war in Afghanistan," he said.
His group is planning to print casualty reports, cost analyses, cuts in social services that are attributed to the war, layoffs attributed to the war, new laws that are passed and other information that readers can use to assess the real costs of the war on terrorism.
The newsletter will highlight quotes from different publications and cite the sources for those quotes. Consumers can track down the full story and decide if the source is a good one. The idea is that some information that gets downplayed in the media will get better billing in the newsletter, said Rubin. Facts that may be buried in paragraph eight of an article will be one screaming headline in the newsletter. "They're (newspapers) saturated with rhetoric and within the rhetoric are kernels of information," he said.
Consumers will also be able to compare conflicting information from different news agencies and make decisions about who's telling the truth, said Rubin. "Truth generally does rise to the top," he said.
The newsletter will be circulated on college campuses, military bases, and workplaces as well as by e-mail, said Rubin, and it will be available in both Spanish and English.
Of course Rubin also has an agenda. His group is against the military action in Afghanistan and it's unlikely that war will look good in Operation Infinite Information.
However, according to Tompkins, the newsletter can be a very useful tool. "Some of the most important sources of information have been from these kinds of groups," he said. As an example he cites Amnesty International's ability to get underreported information out to the public in ways the media can't.
Tracking statistics such as casualty reports can have important political implications, he said. In Mogadishu, high numbers of U.S. casualties caused a quick retreat. Comparing sources of information can also serve a purpose, he said. "It might give people comfort to know that the information will come not just from the Pentagon but from sources that might even be considered adversaries."
However, the reasons the Pentagon is secretive about figures such as casualty numbers may be less sinister than you think. Telling the other side that a particular unit was decimated in battle might alert them to vulnerable targets, said Tompkins.
Reading a headline and source, however, won't make readers more informed, said Tompkins. They need to read context and background information, which can make the difference between knowing and thinking that you know.
"We underestimate how smart people are and we overestimate how much they know," said Tompkins.
To find out more about the Operation Infinite Information newsletter, e-mail People United For Peace at www.oneworldnow@att.net.
To find out who owns a particular Web site, go to these sites: www.marksoneline.com.
Snopes.com debunks rumors and urban legends.
Contact Staff Writer Rochelle Renford at 813-248-8888, ext. 163 or rochelle.renford@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2001.