To Snopes or Not to Snopes?

I am new to Snopes.com and was curious to check it out! Rumor has it that the “owner” of Snopes.com is a liberal democrat and an avid supporter of President Obama. With that in mind, I started my crusade in finding anything that would sustain or dispute these allegations.  

Source: Snopes.com

I chose a couple of politics-related posts. The first one was regarding President Obama’s ban on Christmas trees from Veterans facilities claiming that it would be favoring one religion over another. The post received a "Mixture" review (Fig. 1). Later was confirmed that the orders came from the facility itself, not from the president.  Click here to read about it.

Figure 1
Source: Snopes.com

Snopes has a ‘true, false, mixture’ meter which is their take on whether or not the story is either one of those. The Christmas tree story got a “Mixture” review, meaning that it’s a mixture and true and false information. In my opinion, the post provided enough evidence to persuade me as an unbiased reader.  Click here to read about it

 

 


Source: Snopes.com

The second story I read was about Donald Trump – a republican, suggesting that all Muslims should wear an ID badge. Click here to read about it.  That story also received a mixture review.

Is it clear that Snopes is biased? Not necessarily. Why? Well, in Trump’s defense (again, a republican) Snopes stressed that Trump did not suggest the use of a badge for Muslims, what he indeed suggested was that all Muslims should be registered in a database. Besides, in some of its political-related posts, Snopes provides evidence of its claims citing information from outside sources crediting both sides - republicans and democrats.  
 

It is okay to endorse either party AS LONG AS the person providing the information is able to deliver unbiased material so that the public can develop their own opinion regarding any specific issue. By doing that, it would also help to build Snopes’s credibility since it has been under fire for providing biased information and for being owned by “flaming liberal” according to the website About.com. Should we then assume that the person behind the About.com article scrutinizing Snopes.com is a conservative republican?
 

The Sentinel - Blog 6

While reading through The Sentinel I was able to notice a few similarities throughout the years. I skimmed through a 2007, 2011 and 2015 issue. I noticed that security, tuition and parking have been a problem for a long time, and that many of these issues were  also mentioned on many posts on last week's assignment. One example is “The Beat” section, which is a report of crimes that happened on campus. The section includes reports of a variety of infractions, from something as simple as a scratch on car while parked and unoccupied to a major report about the death of a 19 year-old found in one of the dorms.

Another section that caught my attention was the “Opinions.” Most of those articles are written by KSU students who have something to say (or rant) about a particular subject. On this article from 2011, a student was disillusioned with the fact that most students voted ‘yes’ for a KSU football team (then inexistent) that would not be put together for a few years. Her concern was that a tuition fee was to be charged specifically for the football team but many students would not get to see it as they would've had graduated already.

An article from the last issue also related to security, addressed the evacuation of the Social Science building that happened on October 22, 2015. Students were asked to leave the building and were not informed of the reason. Later, students learned that the police was performing a “routine bomb sweep . . . because an Israeli consulate was speaking in the building later that day” (2015).

Illustration 1. Source: The Sentinel 2007

One last thing that caught my attention was a survey at the bottom of one of the pages (Illustration 1). It wasn’t about anything meaningful but I thought it was very convenient that we are currently learning about surveys & interviews and there it was! I can definitely use it as an example of how to integrate a graph (or a pie chart) on my report.

 

Fun fact: The logo evolution of The Sentinel

 

2015

2011



2007



 (Source: The Sentinel)