Snopes?

**5711-Marine** · October 28th, 2008, 04:57 PM

Interesting read

Who do we now believe? You can not trust the National Media and now it seems you can’t trust SNOPES? Does anyone have an alternative??

We learn the "truth" behind Snopes.com

For the past few years www.snopes.com has postioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the 'tell all final word' on any comment, claim and email. But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com . Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife team - that's right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers. It's just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.

David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago - and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research. After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation? The reason for the questions - or skepticims - is a result of snopes.com claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong. Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelsons were not really investigating and getting to the 'true' bottom of various issues. I can personally vouch for that complaint.

A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the internet,'supposedly' the Mikkelson's claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com . In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort 'ever' took place.

I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this and I gave him Bud Gregg's contact phone numbers - and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec's at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it. He never called Bud. In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm. Yet, snopes.com issued a statement as the 'final factual word' on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things - not!

More here

**Defleshed** · October 28th, 2008, 05:17 PM

Wikipedia is BS on issues, snopes has flat out lied, and politifact i don't frequent enough to know about. though, i learned a lot about ballistics and esoteric rifle catridges through wikipedia

**ReefBlue** · October 28th, 2008, 08:29 PM

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/chicken.asp

An e-mail circulated in October 2008 falsely claimed that we contacted neither Bud Gregg nor State Farm about this subject. We did in fact attempt to contact both Bud Gregg and State Farm; only the latter responded to us, and provided the information cited on our page. Similar information was reiterated by a State Farm Public Affairs Specialist in a letter to the http://www.techetoday.com/node/7462

Here is the letter from the link above:

Sign did not
reflect views of
State Farm Ins.

I would like to respond to the article that appeared in the Teche News regarding the political sign displayed at the Bud Gregg insurance agency.
Mr. Gregg is an independent contractor to State Farm®, and his views do not reflect those of State Farm Insurance Companies. Management requested the sign be removed as soon as its presence became known. It was taken down on July 3. Mr. Gregg’s sign was not endorsed by, nor consistent with State Farm’s corporate practices. The company does not endorse candidates, nor take sides in political campaigns.
At State Farm® we take great pride in providing the best service possible to all of our customers, regardless of their political preferences, and take seriously our responsibility to do so. We appreciate your allowing us the opportunity to respond to this circumstance, and clarify our position. We would also appreciate you allowing your readers to know our side of the issue.
Please feel free to contact me if you should have any additional questions or concerns.

Molly Quirk-Kirby
Public Affairs Specialist
State Farm Insurance
Companies