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How to respond to whisper-campaigns?
(I posted this as a comment on my previous post, but I think it may deserve its own thread)
My blood has cooled a little bit on this since first posting on this subject, but I remain concerned, and I want to ask readers this question:
What is the best way to respond to junk like the Tennessee GOP smear? I am of a few different minds about it.
On the one hand, vigorous denunciations are in order--we can't let Obama be swiftboated, particularly not when the slanders mean to reopen and exploit our nation's racial and ethnic wounds.
On the other hand, do our responses just serve to spread and legitimize these whisper-campaigns? Put another way, in spreading their lies, do we just become a bunch of Nedra Picklers? After all, I don't particularly trust the MSM to handle insinuations like these with the skepticism and delicacy they demand (anticipate headlines like "Is Obama an anti-Semite?" "Obama's Muslim roots," "Should Obama have repudiated Farrakhan more vigorously?" "Is Obama patriotic enough?" etc.).
How do you defeat viral rumors, once the cat is out of the bag? To mix metaphors, calling attention to slander can be like throwing water on a grease fire.
Finally, how do we make clear that race-baiting, guilt-by-association and whisper-campaigns are intolerable, without seeming overly-sensitive, whiny, or censorious? (That last one is of particular concern. Censorship should be off the table.)
Ideas, anyone?
My blood has cooled a little bit on this since first posting on this subject, but I remain concerned, and I want to ask readers this question:
What is the best way to respond to junk like the Tennessee GOP smear? I am of a few different minds about it.
On the one hand, vigorous denunciations are in order--we can't let Obama be swiftboated, particularly not when the slanders mean to reopen and exploit our nation's racial and ethnic wounds.
On the other hand, do our responses just serve to spread and legitimize these whisper-campaigns? Put another way, in spreading their lies, do we just become a bunch of Nedra Picklers? After all, I don't particularly trust the MSM to handle insinuations like these with the skepticism and delicacy they demand (anticipate headlines like "Is Obama an anti-Semite?" "Obama's Muslim roots," "Should Obama have repudiated Farrakhan more vigorously?" "Is Obama patriotic enough?" etc.).
How do you defeat viral rumors, once the cat is out of the bag? To mix metaphors, calling attention to slander can be like throwing water on a grease fire.
Finally, how do we make clear that race-baiting, guilt-by-association and whisper-campaigns are intolerable, without seeming overly-sensitive, whiny, or censorious? (That last one is of particular concern. Censorship should be off the table.)
Ideas, anyone?
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Don't know the answer. Maybe accountability:
http://internet-law.lawyers.com/Libel-Online.html
February 27, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are doomed by the blogosphere.
It used to be that a campaign could fight this with message discipline giving savvy answers to the media, stop something in its tracks.
Now you have all of the volunteer amateur war room spinners like on TPM Cafe Reader Blogs who want to take over the campaigning themselves, think they can do it better than the other "they" used to.
Viral memes are the future. Every Tom Dick and Harry has got a printing press, and the ones that raise the savviest largest army with the most catching narrative wins.
It's a pity for those of us who dislike great quantities of noise and spin and appreciate that thing called editing. You can all keep blaming the old MSM way of doing things, but that is not what's causing this. The political MSM now runs on ratings and clicks on the websites. It comes from you, from what you are interested in, from you giving narratives buzz.
February 27, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like most things, I think you kill it with sunlight. Once a rumor like this leaks into either news coverage, local news, public speeches, (non/)campaign literature, popular blogs (of any stripe), I think you expose it to the light, deny the rumors, denounce those who market in rumor and innuendo, and tell the American people why you are right for the job.
And I think Obama has done this tremendously well. It takes sites like TPM and the Horses Mouth to take the lead in ratting them out and holding the MSM accountable for their headlines.
February 27, 2008 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I say let Sen. Obama address these smear campaigns himself. He has a superb sense of humor and could easily swat them down while making the perpetrators look foolish......and they would HATE that. He should not waste time denouncing every nut that crawls from the woodwork, but if something looks like it's going to gain traction and the MSM starts repeating it, then he needs to nip it in the bud. I also hope he's got a crack team tucked away somewhere who can quickly track and expose the sources when the 527s get busy with their filth.
February 27, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Never, ever fail to speak up. Never.
February 27, 2008 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is that repeating the smear to debunk it can paradoxically led it authority and make it more memorable. The trick is to refute it without repeating it. Mockery is one way. I wrote some thoughts about it on Kos recently: http://redshift.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/21/151318/828/383/461353
February 28, 2008 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink