By Kevin Wack
Kennebec Journal
Published: 12/14/2006
Excerpt:
Who is in her late 50s, lives in Falmouth and has access to a Cadillac?
Cyber-sleuths puzzling about that mystery came up with a famous name this week, and in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it spread across the Internet like wildfire.
To be clear, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe is not the woman who police said made an illegal U-turn on Interstate 295 last week, causing a seven-car pileup, and then fleeing the scene.
While Maine State Police were looking for the actual culprit last Thursday, Snowe was in Washington, D.C., voting on the nomination of the Food and Drug Administration's new commissioner.
Still, it's not hard to understand how this rumor got started. Snowe was a good match for the description released by police.
The suspect was identified as a Falmouth woman in her late 50s who was driving a light-colored Cadillac.
Snowe is 59, and she lives in Falmouth with her husband, former Maine Gov. John McKernan, who owns a Cadillac. "Maybe all of us has a doppelganger," said Snowe spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier, "and it sounds like Sen. Snowe has one of those doppelgangers out there." ...
... Once the crash report is finished, the case will be turned over to the Cumberland County District Attorney's Office. Al Tompkins, who teaches media ethics and online journalism at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla., said the case illustrates what happens in an information void.
"Anytime there is a lack of information, people tend to fill it in with their own versions of the truth," Tompkins said. "What happens on the Internet is not really any different than what happens off the Internet," he continued. "The only difference is you can spread rumors worldwide with the click of the mouse, instead of across a bar."
More of this article...Search Google News for more quotes by Al Tompkins...
