The Truth:
In October, 2008, stories
began circulating via forwarded emails that the popular urban legends
site Snopes.com was owned by liberals and was "in the tank" for
presidential candidate Barack Obama.
As with many forwarded
emails, the criticism did not include any example of what the writer of
the email claimed was the difference between what Snopes.com reported
and what Barack Obama had actually said.
Snopes.com is an excellent site that has become an authoritative source
for information about urban legends and forwarded emails. We regard
David and Barbara Mikkelson, the founders and operators of Snopes.com,
as colleagues and professional researchers who have earned a good
reputation for what they do.
We can give a unique perspective on this story because we do the same
kind of work as Snopes.com and have sometimes been the target of similar
criticism.
We've got a collection of emails that have come to TruthOrFiction.com
accusing us of being "right wing whackos" as well as "liberals" and
"communists." We've been suspected of being owned and operated by both
Republicans and Democrats. We've been called "Christian propagandists"
as well as "atheists pretending to be neutral." We occasionally receive
emails that have elaborate theories about who "really" owns us and what
our "real" motives are.
The bottom line is
that if you try to report the truth, there will be those who don't like
the truth you've reported and who will develop suspicions about why you
did.
That, in our view, is what is happening with Snopes.
The 2008 presidential
campaign has been one of the most intense and unique in our nation's
history and has prompted more political eRumors than any presidential
campaign in our experience, especially about Barack Obama.
These anti-Snopes
emails have probably been prompted by someone who does not like Barack
Obama and does not like the fact that Snopes (or TruthOrFiction.com for
that matter) has debunked some of the emails that are not true about
him.
One of the versions of the eRumor mentions TruthOrFiction.com and
recommends our site. We appreciate that, but we want to say for the
record that we've had nothing to do with this eRumor about Snopes.com
and we condemn it.
updated 10/21/08