On Oct 2, 2005, at 16:17, Jenny Barron wrote, in response to Lynn
Weasenforth:
sorry Lynn, this is an urban myth - see here
http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/perfume.asp
This was written by a guy from KVLY-TV in Fargo;
There was a very interesting article in today's Washington Post's
Opinion section about information - and misinformation - coming down
from supposedly reputable/respectable sources and how such
misinformation erodes the public's trust in *everything* they're told.
Which, in turn, could have dire consequences in a real crisis.
It had nothing to do with urban myths; it was all about recorded and
proveable (I assume <g>) instances of - stark-but-true vs untrue or
misleading or inadequate - utterances by high officials and
radio/TV/paper personalities during various recent crises (London,
Katrina, Rita), and had been prompted by the retraction - by several
major newspapers - of some of the "reports" printed during the
immediate aftermath of Katrina. They went by what x said, and x went by
what y said, and y heard from z that...
Those (truly official, but misleading nevertheless) official statements
- like the urban myths - prey on fear and on the shred of probability
(with a touch of "cover my butt" thrown in). Urban myths may cause
*less* damage - I had no trouble discounting Lynn's warning as being
silly, without even resorting to snope - but they all do cause it. Long
term.
Back in communist Poland of my teens we didn't believe *anything* we
were told from "upstairs" ("upstairs" being a fluid term and covering
"everyone other than myself"), unless it was told as a denial ("it is
not true that there was a 10 thousand- strong demonstration of
political opposition" was always interpreted as "there *was* a 10,
possibly 20 thousand-strong demonstration"). Such erosion of trust
results in lack of appropriate action when it's necessary, and when
there may be no time to *check* the truth of the rumour... The old
story of "the boy who cried wolf".
--
Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/
Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland)
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