With my research indicating that corrections are frequently ineffective (here and here), I've recently argued that the most effective way to combat misperceptions is to shame the elites that promote them. It's time to put that strategy to work.
Specifically, we've reached a crucial moment in the debate over the increasingly popular misperception that President Obama is not a citizen of this country. It has now been endorsed by conservative figures like Rush Limbaugh, promoted by CNN's Lou Dobbs, and reinforced by ten GOP members of Congress who are backing a birther-inspired bill about birth certificate requirements for presidential candidates. Other GOP members recently failed to disown the myth in interviews with Mike Stark of Huffington Post.
Last week, Dobbs drew national attention to the issue and was widely mocked by commentators. And yet CNN president Jon Klein, who called the story "dead" in an internal email that was made public, later seemed to back down and has allowed Dobbs to continue to raise the issue on his network.
We are therefore at a key turning point in the debate. Reputational pressure must be applied to force elites to stop promoting this scurrilous rumor. It shouldn't be hard -- a number of prominent conservatives have already condemned the rumor as false. Even hardcore anti-Clinton conspiracists like Ann Coulter and R. Emmett Tyrell have disowned it. So why can't CNN stop covering it? Every day that they fail to do so is an embarrassment to all of the journalists who work there. The same principle applies to the GOP, which needs to use its institutional leverage against members who fail to disown the myth.
Update 7/28 10:42 AM: I've corrected this post to remove criticism of Rep. Michelle Bachmann for blocking a vote on a resolution that described Hawaii as Obama's birthplace -- my source for the claim, Think Progress, appears to have misinterpreted Bachmann's procedal objection. (I should take my own advice about trusting the Center for American Progress.)
I think CNN is just happy that they are getting some attention. I can't think of any other reason to keep Lou Dobbs on the air.
Posted by: Raleighite | July 29, 2009 at 08:00 AM