> Among [Dennis Avery's] qualifications listed there are that he's been
> quoted in various big media. Not that he said anything documentable or
> accurate, just that they quoted him.
Just to add injury to injury (to the truth), newspapers tend to recycle
errors because once something has appeared in print (true or not), it
tends to be requoted without any fact-checking taking place. When
reporters come along the next day, week or month and research a new
story by looking at newspaper archives, they tend to assume that what has
appeared in the newspaper already must have been checked out for accuracy.
Its appearance in print gives it a veneer of authenticity.
In the same way, someone like Avery takes on a veneer of authoritativeness
as a source of info. Well, if all these other reporters have quoted him
before me, then he must be one of the definitive voices on Topic X. I'll
quote him, too. In both cases, the big lie is like a snowball rolling
downhill -- harder to stop it than to go ahead and roll with it.
-30-
Leo Horrigan
Center for a Livable Future
Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health
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