This page was last updated on February 16, 2011.
Piroli: Internet postings can’t be taken at Face(book) value; Gino Piroli; Beaver County Times; February 14, 2011.
Tread carfully [sic] while strolling through the Internet; Gino Piroli; Beaver County Times; February 13, 2011.
I didn’t do a word-by-word check, but the only difference between these two columns appears to be the title.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject column.
“There are pluses and minuses to our society’s reliance on the Internet, Facebook and blogs as the prime sources of communication.
“On the downside, some of those sites are not always factual and can be used to the detriment of the truth.”
[RWC] No kidding, and one of those sites is the Times website, including this very column as you’ll read below. Keep in mind Mr. Piroli works for the “12 alive” Times. You may recall we routinely get Times editorials complaining about info sources other than the “old media,” of which the Times is a part.
“For example, when a blogger in India put out that President Barack Obama’s trip to that area cost $200 million a day, that message was picked up by some cable news services and broadcast outlets, even though it was obvious that it wasn’t true.”
[RWC] Not true. The “$200 million a day” story originated with the Press Trust of India (PTI), not “a blogger in India.” According to Wikipedia, PTI “is headquartered in Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 450 Indian newspapers and has a staff of about 2,000 writers spread across 150 offices nationwide. It took over the Indian operations of the Associated Press and Reuters soon after India’s independence on August 15, 1947. It provides news coverage and information of the region in both English and Hindi.” Who does Mr. Piroli’s fact-checking?
“On a lesser scale, some e-mail messages sent to individuals also contain false information and are sometimes passed on to others. For example:
“- In December, I was sent a letter about the decorated heroism on Iwo Jima during World War II by actor Lee Marvin and Bob Keeshan (TV’s Captain Kangaroo), and in another area by Fred Rogers, who became known to generations of children as ‘Mister Rogers.’
“I had intended to include that story in an article, but changed when I learned from Alex Yawor of Hopewell Township, who was on Iwo Jima, and from other sources that the stories weren’t true. Rogers wasn’t in the service, Keeshan was a Marine who never left the states and Marvin suffered a minor wound to his buttocks in Saipan, not Iwo Jima.”
[RWC] Based on his letter-writing body of work, I wouldn’t use Mr. Yawor as a source.
“- There’s another message that comes out every few years with photos of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The story claims that someone found film from an old Kodak Brownie camera and the resulting photos showed spectacular views of the attack. It was later determined that it wasn’t from a Brownie camera and the ship where the alleged photos were found wasn’t commissioned until 1942.
“- The latest fraud was an e-mail sent to me by Dale Yelaca, a 1949 graduate of Aliquippa High School who retired three years ago from the State Department and is now in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. The message from Yelaca contained a video supposedly showing 92-year-old Ginger Rogers, the great movie star of the past, dancing with her 29-year-old grandson.
“A few days later, he sent a correction with the heading ‘I was duped’ after learning that Rogers died in 1995 at the age of 83.
“There’s also the plus side of the Internet because many of the jokes and stories I use are received online and I can usually identify the sender. I also use the Google site on a regular basis to verify stories.”
[RWC] Up to this point, the entire column is about how we can’t trust the Internet. Now, however, Mr. Piroli tells us he uses the Internet “on a regular basis to verify stories.” Hmm, then when he supposedly verified the above story about “a blogger in India,” how did Mr. Piroli get the story wrong? When I did a Google search on “200 million india trip,” it took me only two clicks to uncover the info I presented above.
“While on that subject of stories, most readers know that some of my columns bring comments, most criticizing my opinions and usually with personal attacks. There are also a few complimentary notes, and one particularly struck me because it seemed to reflect my goals in writing the columns, especially those dealing with history.”
[RWC] As I’ve noted before, Mr. Piroli has been regularly whining about “personal attacks” since at least 2004. Here’s what I wrote in a critique of a Piroli column from January 2005: “His ‘columns’ include public personal attacks, yet Mr. Piroli appears to be upset when people do the same to him in private e-mail notes. As a note, review Mr. Piroli’s columns and you’ll routinely find complaints about personal attack e-mail.
“I find it predictable for someone who relies on personal attacks to be offended when on the receiving end. Check Mr. Piroli’s columns over the past couple of years and you will find his columns have referred to President Bush and his administration as court appointed, dishonorable, dumb, incompetent, ‘geniuses’ in a derisive context, liars, obsessive, and so on. Not once did the columns cite credible and verifiable evidence to support the name-calling.”
“It was from a person in Hanover Township, and, with a great sense of humility, I’d like to repeat one sentence. It said: ‘You bring history to life and you construct a bridge to the past and welcome your readers to walk over it with you.’
“I hope other readers feel the same way.”
© 2004-2011 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.