Political rumors, full of sound and fury, fly fast online

Oct 17, 2008 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- NWS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Have you read the e-mail from the psychologist who detailed how her South Pacific vacation was ruined by an encounter with a boorish, racist John McCain?

Surely your inbox has been clogged with those exposes about Barack Obama's secret life as a radical Muslim who won't recite the Pledge of Allegiance? And how about Sarah Palin posing with a rifle in a U.S. flag bikini and claiming her daughter's baby as her own?

Malarkey all. Yet people who routinely laugh off those get-rich-quick entreaties from the ubiquitous Nigerian banker can now be found yapping incessantly on cyberspace, talk radio and around the office about an ocean of specious political muck.

"This election is made for an upper-level 'rumor psychology' class," said Nick DiFonzo, a psychologist and rumor expert at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York. "In the 20 years I've been studying rumors, I've not seen this level."

The reasons are many. A more polarized political environment. Intense economic uncertainty. The fracturing of the information filter formerly provided by a large, vigilant and once more-widely trusted mainstream media.

But if there's an overarching culprit, it is the Internet, which in the run-up to Election Day is betraying its dark side as the perfect conduit for crackpot conspiracy theories, manipulative propagandists and obnoxious chatter.

To be sure, the Internet has proved a revolutionary tool for campaigns to disseminate information, rally support and raise money. But DiFonzo and other experts say it has also enabled conservative and liberal partisans to retreat into cyber-echo chambers where malicious gossip and pseudo-research spread at light speed, often leaking over into more traditional media seeking to attract an audience and fill a 24-hour news cycle.

"The Internet allows messages to travel farther and faster than if we were just talking to our neighbors," said Julie Germany, director of George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. "It feels more anonymous and we tend to be meaner." The dynamic has been on vivid display in recent days.

Andy Martin, a perennial political candidate who was declared unfit and denied a law license by the Illinois Supreme Court, has for years plastered the Internet with controversial claims about Obama. Martin repeated some of his anti-Obama assertions, unchallenged, in recent appearances on Fox News and CLTV, Tribune Co.'s Chicago-area cable outlet.

Steve Farber, CLTV's general manager, said the program Martin appeared on was opinion-based and not part of the outlet's news coverage.

Martin has been sanctioned by federal courts for filing hundreds of largely meritless legal actions, including some laced with anti-Semitic comments. He has sued the Tribune more than once.

In recent days, conservative talk radio has been questioning whether 1960s radical William Ayers could have ghostwritten Obama's autobiography, "Dreams from My Father." The buzz was triggered by speculation of a right-wing blogger whose theories were then trumpeted by Rush Limbaugh.

"The notion that Bill Ayers could have written Obama's autobiography, which spans three continents and was published the same year Obama met Ayers, is one of the most outlandish rumors of the campaign cycle, and it demonstrates how much wild speculation has driven these attacks in the first place," Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said.

Obama and Ayers, once Hyde Park neighbors, met in 1995. Obama began writing the book three years earlier.

American politics has never been a gentleman's sport, and it was well over a century ago that Chicago newspaper humorist Finley Peter Dunne coined the observation that "politics ain't beanbag."

But the Internet and its stepchild, the blogosphere, are helping to ratchet up the vitriol several notches this election cycle, and Germany said older, more traditional media outlets are increasingly buying into the trend.

"Whoever shouts the loudest and whoever has the most partisan things to say these days gets the most attention," Germany explained.

Fabrice Florin, executive director of California-based News Trust, said the Internet has led to such a "tsunami of information" that it has become increasingly difficult to sort out well-researched fact from foolishness.

"We're dealing with a real issue in democracy," said Florin, whose non-profit group is dedicated to promoting well-researched journalism.

"We're not good at taking other people's perspectives into consideration. We've gotten ourselves into a mess because we failed to articulate clear values for what it means to be a good citizen and be fair and have a focus on facts."

bsecter@tribune.com

To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.chicagotribune.com. Copyright (c) 2008, Chicago Tribune Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

More News:   Market Updates | Stock Alerts | All Trading News | Stock Index