Snopes.com

[Scroll down for the most recent update -- 10/25/08.]

The Urban Legends Reference Page found at Snopes.com is a frequent reference source for most internet users, so it was interesting to hear Barbara Mikkelson as a guest in a brief telephone segment on C-SPAN's Washington Journal the other morning.

Snopes.com is run by the husband and wife team of Barbara and David Mikkelson. David is a coder and web designer, and Barbara works primarily doing research for the website.

She described how she does the work, for example she explained the process of debunking the belief that colonies of alligators were living in the sewers of New York. According to the myth, baby alligators were brought from Florida but subsequently flushed to end up in the sewers where they thrived. To research this, Ms. Mikkelson searched through microfilm of the New York Times from 1903 to 1993 for alligator stories on the assumption that if the legend were true then there should have been many articles about sightings. There were a handful of sightings during that 90 year period but not enough to confirm the myth. So, Ms. Mikkelson concluded that the myth was "false".

Another debunked myth she talked about was the 2001 fictitious report from the nonexistent Lovenstein Institute on the presidential IQs of 12 presidents. The report was widely circulated around the internet, and it basically said that Democrats had high IQs, but Republicans had low IQs. According to that report, George W. Bush's IQ is 91, exactly one half of Bill Clinton's IQ which was said to be 182.

Ms. Mikkelson pointed out in the interview that, with the exception of Richard Nixon, the IQs of the presidents are simply not known, and the fake report even got Nixon's IQ wrong. At the snopes website, she points out that The Guardian of London reported it as actual news and didn't retract it until after the Associated Press pointed out The Guardian's error. As one might have expected, Garry Trudeau featured it in a Doonsbury cartoon, and at least one anti-Bush website is still presenting that bogus report as fact.

We've all received emails containing stories that are so wonderful and amusing that we just so dearly want them to be true. The Snopes.com website is a great place to check them out. It's best to see if Barbara Mikkelson has opined on them before forwarding them on to the next email recipient, because eventually someone down the line will.

Instant update: Here's an Online Journalism Review interview with David and Barbara Mikkelson in which they discuss the debunking of the hoax about hunters paying to shoot naked women with paint balls that was in the news recently.

Updated 10/25/08: There's an email floating around which claims that Snopes.com is "owned by a flaming liberal and this man is in the tank for Obama." See Snopes.com, revisited on these pages. The version of the email that I received says that "TruthorFiction.com is the better source for verification, in my opinion."

So if one looks at TruthorFiction.com very near the top of their list is a link to an article debunking that very email and attempting to explain why someone would do that.

What we need now is someone who can fact check the fact checkers.

Comments

[clk]

who are Barbara and David Mikkelson? What are their beliefs and political backgrounds? How are they qualified to bust the rumors? Are they telling the truth or the truth as it is known to them? What is their slant?

[durango]

who are Barbara and David Mikkelson? What are their beliefs and political backgrounds? How are they qualified to bust the rumors? Are they telling the truth or the truth as it is known to them? What is their slant?

[stephanie frost]

who are they

[BJ]

I'm inclined to believe the Mikkelsons are Socialist Democrats based upon their overwhelming support of Barack Obama and normally negative reporting of any person who is classified as a Republican. Unless I see proof to the contrary, that's what I belive!

[Geo]

BJ, can you point us to some examples of what you found?

[dood]

Socialist Democrats? Relax pal. Check out the snopes message boards and you will see they are Republicans. There just seems to be more dirty lies about the Dems that need debunking.

[gettin after lefty]

I will go along with the Socialist Democrats analysis. They do support the Silver tongue devil from the south side of CHITOWN--

[sheree wagner]

What educational background do the Mikkelson's come from and what qaulifications do they have to debunk myths? A lot of people believe what they read on snopes is accurate, and researched information. How do we really know that snopes info is accurate? Or is snopes lik the National Inquirer!

[Fran Burke]

Somehow this crap made it to a friend's email and he forwarded to me as I am continually having to refer him to Snopes.com for sending me all sorts of BS emails that are years old. He is a Republican and I am a non-violent anarchist at heart but I did vote for Obama. He takes offense that I know more about using computers and the internet than he does (I'm a woman). He takes offense that I use a Mac and won't touch a PC. Therefore, when he received this he jumped at the chance to try and show me that Snopes.com was not a valid source for information. But as most men do... he failed to read the entire article or failed to comprehend the gist of it. tsk... tsk...

[george von hilsheimer]

Why are you wasting airspace with this drivel?

GvH

[David]

Yeah, if you've ever actually read through the site you will see a lot of religious, and republican por reports. To claim they're liberals simply because they have a few articles that debunk the vicious lies of the repbulican smear machine simply shows how ignoarant you are.

[Joe]

Snopes is a cheap fraud and a low class sham. The husband and wife team (which comprises the entire "Snopes" organization) knowingly LIED when they claimed Obama is a "natural born Citizen", no none who can breathe on their own is stupid enough to take "Snopes" seriously.

[RDeere]

All I want to know is HOW in the world do these two people check out so many things and report on them.

[jtpenno]

They admit that they read liberal media to base there judgement of truth or fiction on political issues. If you call cnn and the L.A. Times accurate news sources you are probably a lefty too.

[Alejandro]

I wholeheartedly agree with you about Snopes. I've tried to exlpain Snopes to most of my friends and family, but have had limited success. I've had some family members email things to me to check out for them, because they don't understand how I do it . Some people should not be allowed to use email.One last thought, I'd like to add another resolution to your list when forwarding, use the copy and paste feature to cut the text you'd like to forward and then create a NEW message and paste your text there instead of hitting the forward button. This will help keep more email addresses private.

[mona]

All I can find is that he is a web site designer and she does their research on the internet. No educational background that I can find. I would like to know how they outrank 50,000 expert architects and engineers who believe 9-11 was an inside job? They should stick to folklore.