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Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Harder to put out a fire than start one

Apparently, there are a huge number of Americans that don't believe Obama was born in the US. Also, apparently, there are a huge number of Americans that don't believe in evolution or climate change.

This begs the question: if the news, a source of "information," is now on 24 hours a day and seven days a week in a variety of easy to reach platforms such as the internet, mobile devices, oh and newspapers and television...why are people believing things that are patently false? Shouldn't, with the stunning growth of (what once could be unironically called) "information technology," idiotic rumors be more quickly squelched? Not confirmed, debated, stoked and even spread?

2 comments:

Dan Freeman said...

Technology doesn't change the simplicity of folks believing what they want to believe.

It just gets easier to seek out like minded fools for proper insulation

Kris Vire said...

My gut says that the proliferation of media sources actually encourages the wingnuts. When even Bill O'Reilly is fact-checking the wingnuts, telling them they aren't convinced Obama was born in Hawaii precisely because they "don't want to be convinced," they can always switch over to Lou Dobbs, who supports their craziness. There's always an outlet that will tell you what you want to hear.