At the end of this Email is a quote of the month by Jay Leno.. If you don’t read anything else, Please Read what he Said.
Very well stated, Mr. Leno.
The most interesting things to me so far about taking a closer look at the emails that fly around among conservatives, Republicans and their friends and family are two.
First, it is clear that each of these emails has a core error in them; the one thing that makes the email stand out and seem reasonable when it’s really not.
For example, here the core ‘mis-fact’ if you will is that that this article was written by a Washington Post columnist and published in what I suppose is considered a liberal paper. But that ‘mis-fact’ is not true and if removed, makes the rest of the email irrelevant or it should.
Or here, the ‘mis-fact’ that 15% of your salary goes to Social Security, when it’s actually 10%. In the email that 5% along with some other key mathematical errors makes a big difference.
The people at Snopes by the way do a remarkable job of fact checking and researching the emails. And we owe a hat tip to our friend Tom S for passing these onto us.
What I’ve realized, however, is that these core ‘mis-facts’ are the reason people read these, they are the hook that gets people interested. There is also a pattern of it being unexpected people agreeing if you will with the Republican / Conservative view point.
Can you believe The Washington Post printed this? See we are right.
Can you believe a Hollywood Star said this? See we are right.
The second thing that is interesting to consider about these emails is someone, somewhere, takes the time to create a false email and send it out in the rightosphere online. And I wonder about that.
The pattern is too clear, the type size as Tom pointed out to me, is extra large so older people can read. The emails are all about the same length and they follow a pattern.
A prominent ‘mis-fact’ combined with an incredulous, can you believe so and so agrees with us, said this, printed this, and then funny enough, really no ending.
We’ll keep digging on that. But no, Jay Leno didn’t say this.
The quote of the
month is by Jay Leno:
“With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control,
mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms
tearing up the country from one end to another,
and with the threat of swine flu
and terrorist attacks.
Are we sure this is a good time
to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?’
Thanks. I just received what I call an ‘ass-on-fire’ email from my winger ‘speed bag’….it’s a light workout……containing the alleged Leno remarks. Nice that your site came up with a copy and paste of the lead in to the email.