Yawn. Yet another hypocritical pundit who can’t be bothered undertaking minimal research or fact-checking:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/04/snopescom/

This is a rabbit hole to avoid.
Snopes, like anything on the internet, needs to be read with all critical skills intact. It is often a helpful starting point in sorting out truth claims (and finding out where those odd pictures really came from).
As for Mr McCaleb’s specific complaints. “Properly validating” the President’s birth certificate can mean many different things, and the birthers have played that ambiguity for all it is worth. The case of the political sign can also be loaded with ambiguity at all levels.

Thanks to Greg Monasco and factcheck.org for dispelling this political rant. Like most political rant of the left or right, this one doesn’t hold up to real scrutiny.

Oh the irony. I supose it was just a matter of time before Snopes was itself the victim of internet rumors. I particularly enjoyed the citing of Wikipedia as a trustworthy investigative source. Not so happy with the insinuation that if one is a “liberal” one always has a political agenda and is therefore incapable of participating in any activity with integrety and honesty.

Thanks Greg and Hal. And we know that Factcheck.org because…….? Basically I don’t much trust any free online services that do not cite their sources. Good to see Factcheck gave us some this time.
BW3

What that last post should have said is ‘We know that Fackcheck.org is reliable because…????
BW3

Bill,
Here’s a site with which I have had better luck: http://www.truthorfiction.com/
Larry

Maybe when the conservative demagogues rewriting the Bible are finished with that project they can turn their attention to creating a truthy right-wing Snopes.

I have not read every snopes article but I have read many and it has been my experience that they always list sources that can be checked. Sometimes that checking is very difficult and beyond my scope but usually it is not.
Obviously any source should be critically evaluated. I don’t think that anyone is arguing that these sites are peer-reviewed journals. To direct someone to snopes (or factcheck or truthorfiction) in response to a spurious e-mail is not the same as asking them to discard their critical thinking skills, but it is a good place to start looking for other more reliable sources.
I am a skeptic one of my concerns with society is how many people seem to lack healthy levels of skepticism. But in the quest to increase skepticism, I see snopes as an ally not an enemy. I think that most who take the time to check snopes already possess enough skepticism to bring that healthy perspective to their reading of snopes. The real danger is how many people simply believe the e-mails and rumors that snopes seeks to correct.
Ironically, it is not snopes but e-mails like the one you quote that are the real danger as far as I can see.
Just to be clear I think that your main point is that wise people (and especially wise Christians) should brings healthy doses of skepticism to all things. I think that you worry about snopes not because it is particularly harmful but because many trust it implicitly in an unhealthy way. If that is the case then I give your concerns a hearty thumbs up. But in the long run I think that sites like promote this attitude by identifying what kind of sources are highly unreliable (like e-mail forwards) and pointing toward sources that are more reliable.

It seems ridiculous to me to say that snopes and factcheck are unreliable based on an email claiming that they are so by someone who clearly has a political ax to grind. As for, how do we know that factcheck.org is reliable, a good indication is that it’s funded and run by the Annenburg Foundation, a non-partisan group at the University of Penn. Does that make it an infallible source? No, but seriously, what organization, publication, etc. could you point to and say, “This is the reliable conveyer or truth about current affairs and modern politics.”? The fact is that some sources are much more reliable than others, and there’s no sense in casting doubt on a source when they can consistently be demonstrated to be accurate. The accusation that Snopes is a “mom and pop” operation and therefore isn’t to be trusted is laughable. If it were run by a major news group with hordes of investigative journalists it would still be ignored or castigated as “very Democrat” (I’m not sure that’s an adjective by the way) by folks with Mr. McCaleb’s preconceived notions about the President’s country of origin. Should we all do critical research of primary sources in order to gain a higher level of certainty about the issues of the day? Of course. But the fact is that most of us don’t have the time or the ability to do all of that checking for us, and non-partisan services like Snopes and Factcheck serve a valuable purpose in pointing us to credible sources and summarizing their work for us. There’s nothing wrong with that unless you’ve got a particular social narrative which you require every news story to fit into as the birther movement does.

Factcheck.org- run by the Annenberg Foundation- who sponsored the Chicago Annenberg Challenge- which was partly proposed by William Ayers, former terrorist and friend of Barack Obama. Another website that proclaims to be telling the objective and unbiased truth.
No thanks.
Snopes may be run by a couple of liberals who sometimes let their bias show, but they have been pretty useful at times.
God bless you,
Chuck

“Then it has been learned the Mikkelsons are very Democrat and extremely liberal.”
According to http://www.opensecrets.org, neither of the Mikkelsons have contributed to any Democratic Party. Neither are members of any Democratic party.
It sure sounds like if you dare call shenanigans on those vicious viral mails, and provide evidence of those shenanigans, you’re automatically labeled “very Democrat and extremely liberal.”

I’m so tired of Christians getting all flustered about the latest wild rumors. Apparently, they will know that we are Christians by our gullibility and our willingness to believe evil of those we think of as our enemies.
In the past, I’ve tried to educate my conspiracy-minded relatives and acquaintances about doing a little verification before forwarding something. I fear they will now hear of this exposé of Snopes and feel even more justified in not doing one lick of verification before forwarding anything. Well, that’s not quite true. The verification process apparently is:
1. Does this email accuse a Democrat of anything illegal, immoral, or corrupt?
2. Well, then it must be true!
Personally, I am grateful for Snopes and similar sites because they take the time to look into allegations and allow me to save that time. I don’t consider Snopes to be infallible or completely unbiased (who is?), but it is a good place to start.

“According to http://www.opensecrets.org, neither of the Mikkelsons have contributed to any Democratic Party. Neither are members of any Democratic party.”
I’m not really sure what this has to do with determining whether someone is liberal or conservative. For example, I am not a member of a political party nor have I ever contributed money to a political party or candidate. But I have some strong political opinions and leanings and a track record in voting that strongly leans to one party over another.
The folks at factcheck.org appear to have personally interviewed David Mikkelson. Why didn’t they simply ask him who he voted for in specific elections? Or ask him his opinions on specific political issues? That’s a much better way of determining a political bias than campaign contributions and party membership. Likewise for Barbara. Since she is a Canadian citizen, it appears that none of the factors cited by factcheck.org asked asked can actually help us determine whether she has a political bias.
I personally suspect that the Mikkelsons are left-leaning in their politics. They may even have shown bias on their website before. But as yuckabuck pointed out, the site is very useful. And all of us should use our critical faculties when reading it just like anything else encountered on the web. Or anywhere else.

I agree that sometimes Snopes is useful. However, it does dissemble, frequently.
Over the weekend someone sent me a claim that there is a House bill pending that would require, for re-selling a house, a license and proof of energy efficiency. Snopes said that’s false and that any such requirements would require completely new legislation. It referenced the Nat’l Association of Realtors’ website.
In checking that link, the association said they had lobbied to get the requirements deleted from the bill. Snopes had not disclosed the fact that those requirements had been in the original.
Further, to assert, as the lawyers behind Snopes did, that new legislation would be needed to (re-)add the requirements is something they must know — as lawyers — to be false. The bill could be amended, or it could be added to a Senate version and negotiated in committee.
A couple of years ago, I compared Snopes assessment of internet charges against Palin — “true,” because Snopes confirmed the author but not the facts — and against Biden — “unconfirmed,” because even tho Snopes confirmed the author they did not confirm he was telling the truth. Seems like a double-standard/bias to me!
As for the Mikklesons not making donations to the Democrat party — I’d say the donations they make as Snopes “experts” are far more valuable than dollars!

Seriously?
I’ll look into the State Farm thing, but the rest of this is just nutty. Snopes has NEVER claimed to be a huge staff operation. Each article is signed by the person it’s written by, and it’s always been David and Barbara Mikkelson. There’s no team of investigators other than the two of them; they mostly work from publicly available sources. None of this is news.

I don’t see Snopes as infallible, but it sure is on target quite a bit. Also, it usually does an excellent job listing sources so you can freely check their work. Snopes should not be confused with the Gospel, and we should all verify as this couple does.
However, this e-mail is nothing but a hatchet job. It seems obvious to me that the perpetrator of this e-mail is simply trying to throw mud on snopes for some other issue he or she wants raised. This statement seems patently stupid: In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg that no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm. Snopes didn’t have to call State Farm since the local paper ran an editorial from a public affairs official at State Farm that said: Mr. Gregg is an independent contractor to State Farm®, and his views do not reflect those of State Farm Insurance Companies. Management requested the sign be removed as soon as its presence became known.
Either the writer of the original e-mail is not really friends enough with Mr. Gregg to actually receive the truth or, and this seems more plausible, the writer of the original e-mail fabricated from whole cloth the entire thing – just like many of the chain e-mails many of us go to Snopes or factcheck to check.
Who writes this stuff? What kind of mind sits down and writes this and pulls the wool over the eyes of many of us well meaning Evangelicals? (I know we are not the only ones that get this stuff, but we sure have our share of it, e.g., the FCC and Madelyn Murray O’Hair. I guess I’ll take solace that at least most of my evangelical friends don’t think President Bush or the Mossad are behind the 9-11 attacks!)
It saddens me. From googling this, many folks have already been suckered by this e-mail. It saddens me that I will have folks sending me this one too, and now I’ll have to go through another outbreak of this being sent to me, and I’ll have to bookmark the article in the Teche News to debunk it.
http://www.techetoday.com/node/7462

This is from the Wikipedia article on snopes.com:
“Snopes receives more complaints that it is too liberal than that it is too conservative, but insists that it applies the same debunking standards to all political stories. FactCheck reviewed a sample of Snopes’ responses to political rumors regarding George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, and found them to be free from bias in all cases. FactCheck noted that Barbara Mikkelson was a Canadian citizen (and thus unable to vote in American elections) and David Mikkelson was an independent who was once a registered Republican. ‘You’d be hard-pressed to find two more apolitical people,’ David Mikkelson told them.”
I got the same email bashing snopes from my mom. I think it’s more of the same ol’ stuff: you pretty much believe what you want to believe. If you buy into conservative ideology, then snopes is a liberal website that is built to dupe everyone with liberal lies. If you are free from the conservative matrix, then use snopes with caution just like any other source.

The secret isn’t in the site itself… it’s in the snopes/com message board. That’s where everybody’s true political affiliations come to light … and also where a lot of research *cough* is done, by the members.
I can tell you from personal experience that the messageboard can be a VERY unfriendly place if one does not share certain beliefs with certain people. I have seen users, even some long-term members with upwards of 15,000 posts, banned with no reason or explanation given, and the only conclusion that could be drawn was that they disagreed on some point with the Admins (the Mikkelsons), their appointed Moderators, or certain other posters who were socially aligned with them. (I saw one user banned just for expressing a negative opinion about a celebrity.) On the other hand, extreme behavior on the parts of said socially-aligned posters was tolerated.
I would suggest that anyone trying to determine the alignments of the Mikkelsons and the Snopes website in general spend some time on THAT board, paying special attention to the threads that are seeded by the owner. A pattern emerges.

I am really angry that you two represent yourselves as an unbiased source of information and an expert on disinformation. Since you have decided that information coming from conservatives that you have checked out has been so biased. I think you should disassemble your site and stop giving out information. If you can not be unbiased, you are simply a liberal opinion. Too many people look to you for information for you to only represent one side.

Snopes is not without fault, but it has a valuable purpose. It allows those who have a strongly believed yet mistaken position to see that it may not be as strongly supported as they once thought. It can lead to getting to the bottom of things. It isn’t the bottom itself, but it is a step in the right direction. There are a lot of conspiracy theories from the left right and other directions, but recently more have come from the right. It should not be surprising that the site will have been dealing with them more.

In 5 billion years, the Sun will burn out and all life on Earth will die. All the hand wringing over the accuracy of snopes, or any other fact check site, won’t matter one bit.

Snopes is NOT what is purports to be. It is a valuable resource in many ways, but the results they present have been proven to be anywhere from right on the money, to absolutely incorrect. It does seem to be more likely the leftist side of any topic.. quite likely. But it is still a good resource provided one remains aware of the need for verification.

Are they as liberal as you are conservative? How in the world are we to believe you or them without extensive reseach on both of you. Best not to believe most of what we read on the internet!