The reliability of web sites has been a concern of mine for many years
now and I have made web evaluation a major focus for my teaching. In
spite of all my reading and study of internet issues, today I discovered
how easy it is to fall for e-rumors. I fell for one of them. Although
I am embarrassed to have been taken in - the upside is that I now have a
real life situation to share with my students.
Here is what happened. I heard somewhere that there was a bill in
congress to reinstate the military draft and this time both men and
women would be included. My sceptical bone was tingling and I should
have heeded it. Surely if this was the case, I would be hearing about
such a bill in the news and in the presidential campaign speeches. Why
had I not heard anything before? So - I jumped on the net and searched
for information. A Google search produced a number of results. I
scanned the url's and decided that a page on Congress.org looked
promising and this is want I found"
http://congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=6371971&content_dir=ua_congressorg
I checked Thomas - a reputable source on congressional legislation for
many years. I found that a bill had definitely been introduced:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:HR00163:@@@L&summ2=m&;
Now I was really concerned. After school I had a hair appointment. I
shared the information with my hairdresser who has a son and daughter of
draft age. I promised to send the info on to him. But - that sceptical
bone was stillbugging me, so I decided to look into it a little further.
I took a closer look at congress.org and found out that it appears to
be a company that gathers public opinion for businesses. It just did
not seem to be particulary authoratative as I looked around it. So -
next I investigated the other claims, such as an increase in the
Selective Service Department's budget, and an agreement with Cananda to
prevent draft age people from crossing the border. The more I thought
about it, the "fishier" it all seemed. So - I checked into those other
"facts" and discovered that the whole page was based on an e-rumor. Yes
- there IS a bill in congress to reinstate the draft. But it has been
in committee since it was introduced. The other 2 "facts" about the
selective service and the agreement with Cananda are completely false.
I was convinced when I read the following page on Factcheck.org:
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=200
So - I have learned my lesson. I defintely should know better. I know
that a .org is NO guarantee of reliable information. I DID fact check
the existence of the bill - but I should have gone much further and
checked the other allegations. It will be a very good example to share
with my students. And it raises my concern again about how easy it is
to fall into the trap of misinformation.
Our jobs get more important every year.
Jacquie
"The Librarian, whose job is to heal ignorance, to keep life safe for
poetry and to put knowledge smack dab in the middle of the American
way."
From The Philadelphia Inquirer, 9-20-03
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jacquie Henry, MLS
Ruben A. Cirillo High School (GHS)
Gananda Central School District
3195 Wiedrick Road
Walworth, NY 14568
jhenry@gananda.org
http://www.gananda.org/library/mshslibrary/indexgcl.htm
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