 | Bob Gabordi is executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee.com. He can be reached through this blog, at bgabordi@tallahassee.com or (850) 599-2177 |
Hey, did you hear the one about the national TV anchor who was fired because he tried to air a piece that was critical of the health-care bill?
Well, that rumor was untrue.
OK, what about the one that says the bill requires senior citizens to get counseling on euthanasia every five years?
That, too, was untrue.
What about the one about the suspected shooter at Fort Hood? Did you hear Nidal Hasan was a member of President Obama's Homeland Security transition team?
Once again, this is a false – but at least interesting – rumor.
According to About.com, Hasan did, in fact, participate in a project of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute that discussed the president’s homeland security transition team, but this was an academic exercise and not at all connected to the actual transition team.
The Internet and radio talk show air waves, it seems, are full of these kinds of rumors, most of which can be proven false or true relatively easily with a little research. With blogs, forums, message boards and e-mail to contend with, lots of stuff is flying around.
But who has the time to figure out what’s real or just to get an answer to a question about what’s in a particular piece of legislation?
We do.
A new feature planned for the Sunday newspaper can help get answers to your questions on events in the news, whether on local or national issues. It doesn’t have to be about a rumor. If you are just curious, for example, about a vote that happened in Congress or the Legislature or if you want more information about who supported what at the last commission meeting, just ask and we’ll try to find out.
We can’t answer every question, but we’ll get to as many as possible online, and each week we’ll feature one of the best questions in the newspaper. The topic for the upcoming week is health care, so we'll give preference to answering questions related to that topic.
To ask your question all you have to do is e-mail us at answers@tallahassee.com, post a question on the TallyAnswers blog on Tallahassee.com (click on link to go there now) or call (850) 599-2233.
Applause for Applause!
The good news is that people have lots of good news to share. Applause!, Zing!’s nicer sibling, is expanding to two days. While always available on Tallahassee.com, it now will publish in print on Wednesdays and Sundays.
By the way, Zing! and Applause! get along just fine, for those of you who have asked about that. They have a typical sibling rivalry relationship, of course, but so far, no major bumps or bruises to speak of.
You can also send your Applause! items to applause@tallahassee.com or go the TallyApplause page to send a private message. You have to become a friend of TallyApplause to do that.
Click on this link to go there now .
You can send your comments by clicking the button below, e-mailing me at bgabordi@tallahassee.com, sending a private message on Tallahassee.com, Twitter @bgabordi, LinkedIn, Blogger.com or on my blog on Friendster.
You can also find links to my blogs on Facebook.com, but you have to request to be my friend.
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