Should you really believe anonymous info?
Published 1:36 am Saturday, August 11, 2012
It seems there are lots of people with opinions they’d like to express in the county’s current municipal elections, to be decided later this month.
Trouble is, there are precious few willing to stand up and be quoted.
Already, we have begun receiving letters signed with fictitious names. This week, someone went so far as to set up a generic “Andalusia election” email address from which to send that letter.
Our policy remains that letters should be signed and we should be able to verify that signature. We also limit letters to 750 words, and on several occasions this summer, have asked writers brave enough to put their real names with their thoughts, to edit themselves.
But the realm of social media brings new questions and new problems to campaigns, and a number of locals appear to have spent lots of time creating sites on which the creators’ names do not appear, and generating art work for those sites.
While those things are disturbing for candidates, we would remind voters to ask themselves if they really trust information provided by those who aren’t willing to stand behind the information by providing their names.
If as a community, we don’t read, gossip about, or give energy to the negative information put forth by anonymous sources, they won’t gain momentum.
It is the responsibility of voters to be informed. We encourage you to ask candidates and informed sources questions yourselves. They’re not that difficult to find.