General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Special Forces Soldier killed in Syria" likely not dead, may have faked death (Occupy San Diego)
Update February 3, 2012:
A source has further informed ECM that his name has not been provided for addition to a memorial that honors fallen special services soldiers. Thus at this point, it appears likely that Polk did not die in service overseas. Perhaps he faked his death, or possibly someone else posted misleading information on his Facebook account.....
Read More: http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/node/8382
... Or perhaps no one picked up the phone to confirm before running breathlessly with story. Old mess of a DU thread here. Actual soldiers who have been killed here. Likelihood of this guy having been a Special Forces soldier here.
Again, the moral of the story: "Something I read on Facebook" is not a source.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Recovered Repug
(1,518 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)Historic NY
(37,449 posts)Robb
(39,665 posts)Makes me wonder about the "non-denial" supposedly obtained from his command.
Good link!
Robb
(39,665 posts)Makes DU look like idiots.
Great...
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)thanks for the update, and for staying on the story.
Sid
Robb
(39,665 posts)SidDithers
(44,228 posts)which is why I'm glad you started this one to allow updates to the story to be posted.
Sid
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)Response to Scurrilous (Reply #11)
nadinbrzezinski This message was self-deleted by its author.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Really, the saddest/funniest post I've read in some time!
Thanks!
tkmorris
(11,138 posts)I wonder why she would do that?
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Shame the original OP was deleted.
Robb
(39,665 posts)...it's still in Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:H6VBsgUK1TEJ:sync.democraticunderground.com/1002179652+site:democraticunderground.com+SOLDIER'S+FACEBOOK+POST+RAISES+QUESTIONS+ABOUT&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
It was also posted on DU2, which does not have the same self-deleting feature: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5087821
The memory hole is a tad more shallow these days.
Lone_Star_Dem
(28,158 posts)Mentioned here: http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=28611
When I hit that link it sent me to a deleted OP by the same member which appeared to be on topic judging by the replies. I'm assuming it is, I just want to be sure.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Response to joshcryer (Reply #9)
nadinbrzezinski This message was self-deleted by its author.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)"So from now on, man bytes dog, I can even ask the vet how many stitches."
Anyone?
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)maybe she will learn not to ... nah, nevermind.
sP
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)No wonder Nadin refused to say who she confirmed the death with.
Though I'll keep an open mind and maybe Nadin has a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Response to tammywammy (Reply #13)
nadinbrzezinski This message was self-deleted by its author.
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)Don't say 'his command', what's their name.
If you cannot get a basic fact on if someone's dead, I'm going to take the rest of your article with a grain of salt. You can divert attention away, but the basis of 'we're in Syria!!!' you're spreading was based off this man's Facebook post and it's not even confirmed he was in the Army.
Response to tammywammy (Reply #24)
nadinbrzezinski This message was self-deleted by its author.
Response to nadinbrzezinski (Reply #27)
nadinbrzezinski This message was self-deleted by its author.
Robb
(39,665 posts)Perhaps she can explain the burial.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)yup, we hear on DU are way two stoopid for you're complex storys becuz we are simpley not as smart as you.
petronius
(26,598 posts)At the most fundamental level, what decides that is whether it actually happened.
DU can handle quite a lot. In this case, it seems that you got something wrong - if you can't handle that, perhaps it's you who needs to stick to the man bytes (?) dog genre, rather than slamming this site and its users...
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Instead of admitting you were either taken in completely, or were just making stuff up in order to make yourself look like you had inside knowledge of some sort, you're doubling down on the nonsense.
Heddi
(18,312 posts)to me, that means that what she posts will not be able to stand the test of time, and may be used in the future as a reminder and proof of her disinformation and less-than-truthful "hard-breaking news that americans and Du'ers can't be interested in because it's complex and Americans and DU'ers are stupid and can't handle complex truths, like I can" bullshit.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Thanks for staying on this super dooper classified story!
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Too young to make Master Sargeant told me all I neeeded to know about Polk as a liar.
I figured the real truth would come out sooner or later.
This story also tells me a great deal about those taken in by this guy, and those purporting to know the inside story about his 'death'.
But it will all be forgiven by the fan club, as all the other 'predictions' and 'trends' are soon forgotten as soon as the next breathless prognostication is made for them.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)are now seeing again, yup.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)The Elite Of The Elite!
The ones no one else reads!
Like "Steaming Pile", "Fantastic Stories", and "Stuff I Made Up".
Codeine
(25,586 posts)joshcryer
(62,269 posts)In the information age it is very difficult to parse information, particularly information from untrustworthy sources (ie, anonymous individuals, things like that).
Confirmation bias kicks in and people just start believing false narratives without thinking critically about them.
I encountered this for almost a year while following Libya, and it is the same basic theme.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Lots of unsubstantiated declarations backed by secret sources usually mean it floats in the toilet.
But doubling down on posting what in the end was untruths at best, outright fabrications at worst is not the sign of a trustworthy source, it's the sign of someone with a problem.
Robb
(39,665 posts)I'm pleased it was released quickly. It's reproduced below.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)to coverup, not only his death, but his super-dooper classified mission in Syria?
Robb
(39,665 posts)Devilishly clever, those special forces guys.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)I bet that the nefarious Mr. Polk has gone to ground, or is in a safe house somewhere plotting his next super-dooper double secret espionage black-ops special forces eyes-only elite forces NSA CIA FBI AFL CIO NFL DEA NHL NBA PBA strike.
Or one of those 'three-letter' agencies, I can't keep them all straight.
I was waiting for information of this type to come forward, I knew right down to the soles of my feet it was total bullshit from the get-go, and stated as such.
As did you, you dingbat.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Much easier than admitting a mistake.
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)The truth would have come out in ten minutes or less.
Military special ops guys never talk...EVER.
They seldom acknowledge what their actual MOS was.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)it's supper-dooper classified!
Ikonoklast
(23,973 posts)Oh, not that it's supper-dooper classified or anything like that, it's because I got hammered on home-brew and don't remember.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)for me, it was lagunitas...
takes someone pretty 'special' to enlist, hang around all of less than 4 weeks, then walk off post. Maybe he just needed a ride to Columbia for some reason.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)I've seen the records posted on webites, but no explanation about how it was determined that this 'Jamond Polk' is Jay.
MineralMan
(146,262 posts)evidence that the two are one and the same.
Those sites that check out claims of bogus military service are very thorough with their investigations. They do a really good job of it, too.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)zappaman
(20,606 posts)Swede
(33,208 posts)It's radioactive!
Brother Buzz
(36,383 posts)But my pea brain finally fired the appropriate neurons to remind me to run down to the PX and bag all the aseptic milk cartons before everyone else did.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)greytdemocrat
(3,299 posts)chrisa
(4,524 posts)While DU is usually a source of good info, it sometimes slips up with information that is completely wrong or unfounded. The best approach is to be skeptical, and wait for more information.
MineralMan
(146,262 posts)and not try to do big articles on political issues. They simply do not have the resources to properly check the stories. When I first read this story, alarm bells went off in this old journalist's brain. When you report on the death of a soldier killed in combat somewhere, you really need to be absolutely sure that the information you have is correct.
If a publication and author cannot confirm the information through official sources, they should hold off on publishing the story until they can confirm it. Sadly, small publications like this one in San Diego are usually operating on a shoestring, like most such publications are, so they depend on amateur writers who will write for little or not payment, along with editorial staff without the long experience needed to deal with major stories that involve major issues. That means that stories aren't fully vetted before publication and end up having to be withdrawn or apologized for.
Along the same lines, we see a lot of preliminary things written for some blog or some small publication like this one posted here on DU. Often, we find out later that the stories are not accurate or are just plain wrong from the start. In the meantime, some of these stories stir up all kinds of outrage and get spread all over the internet. Later retractions or evidence that the story was incorrect just don't get the same distribution, so such stories get copied and pasted long after they've been debunked.
It's too bad, really. So much that is incorrect and potentially harmful floats around the Internet. That's why I'm skeptical of such stories and try to dig down and find out the actual facts.
pecwae
(8,021 posts)an invaluable lesson by making an error they won't be in a hurry to repeat. They do have to shoulder some of the blame by accepting a story with such far reaching consequences based on a Facebook page. One doesn't even need editorial experience to question such claims, just common sense.
MineralMan
(146,262 posts)Very embarrassing for them, for sure.
In the meantime, that story has been quoted on numerous websites and blogs. Checking today, none of them have corrected the story. That is why it's a problem. The publication in question has put a disclaimer at the top of the story, but all of those places that copied and pasted the story still have it as written. Mistakes have long legs, I'm afraid, so the damage here is not over. If things go as they usually do, it will continue to be copied and pasted to other blogs and websites, second hand, and will not be corrected.
Sadly, there is no real way to solve this problem, except for publications taking a great deal of care with what they publish, and that's not likely overall. Equally unfortunately, there are no consequences for publication of incorrect stories, other than the publication losing the respect of its readers. The guy who lied about his military service will simply move on and probably continue to lie. That's a pity, since he probably won't get treated for whatever is wrong.
zappaman
(20,606 posts)Not by the OP, of course, but at least it was deleted.
Isn't there anything else the pub can do besides the disclaimer?
Snake Alchemist
(3,318 posts)I wish I had seen the original posts.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)though reading them before deletion might have been entertaining...
sP
zappaman
(20,606 posts)ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)about what is posted rather than just running emotionally through the inter-tubes looking for the 'hottest' bullshit they can dig up...
sP
Robb
(39,665 posts)A little bit of legwork to have outed Polk as a fraud early on might've prevented this: