Storm-tossed rumors show Internet 'news' can be unreliable

WASHINGTON — Prominent Washington attorney Jay Ricks tells of receiving an e-mail forwarded by a Jackson, Miss., doctor who allegedly went to Houston to help with the evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. The letter was widely circulated and was being cited as evidence of the ingratitude of those the doctor was trying to help.

The letter said that after several days of putting up with the most horrendous displays of selfishness and bad manners, including evacuees' rejecting the food being handed out to them and demands for such things as fast-food hamburgers and other fare, the doctor had thrown up his hands and returned home thoroughly disgusted. It was a none-too-subtle racial indictment clearly aimed at the evacuees, an overwhelming number of whom are black.

Ricks noticed that there was a telephone number attached at the end of the letter with no explanation. He called it and was greeted by a recording from a man who identified himself as the doctor. He completely disavowed the entire incident and denied writing the e-mail, which he condemned. He said he had not been to Houston in 10 years.

Therein lies the tragedy of the Internet, where outlandish and undocumented propaganda can gain wide currency; where "bloggers" with no journalistic training or editorial restraint can spew without challenge the most horrendous and inaccurate allegations to promote their aims. The proliferation of unverifiable claptrap has become increasingly disruptive, as more and more people eschew the traditional sources of news and turn to the Web for their daily doses of information or, more accurately, misinformation. Rumors that took days to reach many now take only minutes to spread to millions.

But it would be wrong to indict the Internet entirely. The nation's newspapers and television networks have not shown themselves to be the most accurate. The plight of hundreds of thousands along the Gulf Coast is a case in point. For days following Katrina, and to some extent her later twin, Rita, the commercial media overflowed with tales of lawlessness, including looting, rapes and murder, particularly in the streets and shelters of New Orleans.

Armed hoodlums were said to be roaming the corridors of the Superdome and convention center. Speculation of the number of deaths ranged as high as 10,000 of the city's poorest, mainly drowned in the flooded Ninth Ward and nearby parishes.