Ignore rumors
I had meant to write this column
at the beginning of the year, but with the terrorist attack on September 11, I
felt that "A moment of silence" would be more appropriate. I have
been in journalism since my freshmen year, and it was at that time when I
realized the true meaning of the word "news".
News, I found out, is much more
than facts. But actually, the news we hear on television or read in the
newspaper is, or should be, only facts. But to get to the "news" one
has to go around the rumors.
Rumors are things that may have
been based on truth, but the story gets so out of hand, one cannot tell the
difference between fact and fiction.
There is a game called telephone.
How it works is there is a group of people and one says something to another.
They cannot repeat it, they can only say it once. And then that person tells
what he thinks he heard to another person, and it goes on until everyone has
been told the story. The last person to hear the story has to say what he or
she heard from the previous person.
I remember playing the game with
elementary students and the story was, "That's a cool frog." And by
the end of the round it had become, "Hats on a stool dog."
It is amazing how different
things can get when the people who know the truth tell other people what they
heard.
The worst thing about rumors is
that the reason why they spread so fast is because of other people listening
in, and not catching all of the details. Then an uncontrollable web of
misunderstanding occurs and can make someone look really bad.
So what was the point of me going
on like this? Well, I said that news is getting past the rumors. Rumors are the
things that usually start people wondering, so it is the responsibility of
those who are curious to find out the truth. Or in some cases, go to the
source. No one can really know all of the facts except the person about whom
the rumor is told.
There was a rumor going around
that the Associated Student Body (ASB) was going to have a Renaissance theme
for Winter Formal. A very nice idea. But I had not heard that from any member
of the ASB. So in order for us to do a story on the dance, we had to go to the
source. And it was a good thing we did, because it was definitely not a
Renaissance theme. That is an example of how rumors can lead someone in a
totally wrong direction unless they go straight to the source.
So in short, rumors can cause a
lot of damage. And if they go too far, someone could get hurt.
So, when rumors are going around,
and we curious people want to know the truth, (and we always should want to
know the truth, not rumor), we need to go to the source.