Don't forget your skepticism

Under the circumstances, Jay School Corporation officials and local law enforcement did the best they could to deal with a wildfire of rumors that kept more than half the high school student body at home Monday.
But the environment that made the wildfire possible — an incredibly inter-connected society in an era of Facebook, Twitter, Web forums, and texting — isn’t going to go away.
And it’s inevitable that similar situations will continue to crop up not only here but all over the country.
As superintendent Tim Long said Monday, “It’s not our dad and mom’s world we live in today.”
Just the same, there are some lessons from “our dad and mom’s world” that are worth remembering today.
The weekend rumor wildfire required a spark, but to spread it also required folks to believe without skepticism and pass the rumors on without any sense of responsibility.
For as long as we can remember, there’s been a common admonition not to believe everything you read in the newspaper.
And that’s good advice, because as hard as they try to get things right, journalists sometimes make mistakes. Meanwhile, events are sometimes unfolding so quickly that the best facts available can change in a matter of minutes.
Readers themselves often add to the confusion by muddling news accounts with opinion and bringing their own point of view to the table.
So healthy skepticism has always made sense, even when you’re dealing with a product like a newspaper which has reporters and editors doing their level best to give you the best account possible of what’s going on.
We welcome it.
But one of the marvels of the Internet age is that so many of the same people who distrust the “mainstream media” produced by people devoted to fact-based reporting throw skepticism out the window when they log on to a computer or receive a viral text message.
Suddenly, instead of being thoughtful, critically-thinking consumers of news, too many become credulous, malleable, and ready to pass on the latest gossip or rumor to the next guy in line.
 If there’s a lesson to be learned from last weekend’s “craziness,” it’s that all of us need to regard the new media with at least as much — and probably more — skepticism than the old.
Do not be so quick to believe what you hear.
And hesitate before you pass something along.
Stay skeptical. Think critically.
And don’t feed the wildfire. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]