Re: Jeff Jacoby

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

>Dan B wrote--
>The original story about the fates of the signers of the Declaration of
>Independence was actually written by Rush Limbaugh's father and was first
>presented on Rush's show several years ago.  Apparently his father had
>written a speech on the subject decades ago and had given it around Missouri
>for many years.  Rush was going nuts this week about the story floating
>around the Internet with no attribution.

Alas, that is SOOOOO typical.  Chuck and others have mentioned that on the 
internet, rumours and urban legends get transmitted as fact all the 
time.  Remember the speech a Chicago journalist (Mary Smich) wrote about 
sunscreen that was attributed incorrectly to Kurt Vonnegut and even quoted 
as such by somebody at MIT?  It becomes more and more important for us as 
radio people and writers to check our sources carefully rather than 
trusting what a friend of a friend said...  (And you should see the term 
papers I get from students at Emerson and the other places I teach media 
courses-- all too many quote from websites or magazines with no attribution 
whatsoever...)