Seventy years ago when people received their information from newsprint, it seemed much more accurate than it is today. Since I am in my seventies now, I remember fact checker corrections posted frequently in newspapers. Today’s NY Times depicts three fictional events that have recently appeared in Netflix programs, leaving viewers to believe inaccuracies about real people who are known. Our media is no longer the message. It is the mixed message.
I recall the plagiarism heartbreak of my book Starboard at Midnight, which I wrote to bring my grandfather, Karl Behr, into the eye of history as a man of influence to US history due to his activism with Theodore Roosevelt. He galvanized zeal for preparedness and thus participation in WWI.
Details about him that I had discovered were lifted out of my book and misused. Since the First Amendment is stronger than it should be in this country—particularly in regard to a deceased person who is not known—the thieves got away with taking my found details, twisting them inaccurately and smearing the character of my grandparents. Even making my grandmother out to be a seductress aboard the Titanic. She wasn’t. I’m sure they imagined a movie. Maybe they’re already making one. God forbid.
How sad and wrong this is! How terrible to read, or watch something that is touted as REAL, fully knowing it’s not while realizing that future generations will believe it.
I still feel pain, over and over again, to have once imagined I was honoring my grandfather; and after the theft having someone I loved actually say to me, “What did you expect!” The travesty of having a much wider circulated story about him sold at Barnes and Noble stores all across the country with my name (misspelled) and my book mentioned in the acknowledgment pages as a source for their “accuracy” is a never ending Hell. Five lawyers told me that in any other country I would have had recourse.
This goes on and on. It gets worse. Fake news is everywhere. Fake assumptions are set in stone. No doubt, even fake lies! When this happens for profit it feels even worse and should be prosecuted. But who can afford the price if even possible. Certainly not the victim. That’s how the almighty dollar runs and ruins our “free” country, home of the brave nefarious abusers.
Lynn Sanford 