EDITOR:

Misinformation takes more effort to correct than producing accurate information in the first place. A letter published in the Sept. 6, 2018 Daily Press claimed to quote three prominent senators making statements hostile towards the Constitution.

The quotes were hyperbolic enough to raise a red flag as to their legitimacy. For example, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker is quoted as stating, “We’re sick and tired of the Constitution sitting in the National Archives manipulating everything we do.” Similar quotes were attributed to New York Senator Schumer, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. The writer to the Daily Press had not presented the quotes as satire, but as fact.

A two second Google search of the statement attributed to Senator Booker led to the origins of all three manufactured statements. The fact checking website Snopes found that a satirical website, Babylon Bee, originally published the statements as satire. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/democrats-supreme-court-influenced-constitution/

Google is an excellent tool for checking origins of stories. There are fact-checking websites that are also helpful. Three useful sites are: Snopes, snopes.com, PolitiFact, politifact.com, FactCheck.Org, factcheck.org.

Ideally writers should fact check before publishing their work, but errors sometimes slip through the cracks. When errors are spread, Google and fact checking websites can be our friends.

Rich Clark

Escanaba