Commentary: Say something enough times, even if it’s a lie, and people will repeat it.
Here’s what happened.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham gave a press conference last week, during which I asked a question about campaign rallies and political protests. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we are in a season of robust social protest over police violence and racism, and now we are in the final 100 days of an election cycle. I wanted to get the governor on record with her recommendations about these activities in light of the public health emergency.
Her answer got a lot of attention, but not in the way I expected.
She recommended that protesters “find another way to do that work,” as she put it, since large social gatherings present a risk for transmitting the virus even if people are wearing masks. I thought that was going to be the story, but I was wrong.
Turning to the November elections, she said that political rallies were also risky and then she praised her own political party, the Democrats, for instituting a rule against door-to-door campaigning. She said, and I quote: “The Democratic Party of New Mexico made it very clear that they would not engage in anything that would be in violation of the public health order to campaigning, or organizing or fundraising, including reminding candidates that they can’t be going door to door.”
That’s actually one rather long sentence, and it began showing up in news reports in edited form. The reference to the Democrats was left out and what remained was a statement suggesting that the governor’s new public health order would ban a candidate from knocking on your door – except that isn’t what she said.
If we listen to the entire sentence, the governor was plainly talking about one political party that told its own candidates “you can’t be going door to door.” This statement was made publicly in a livestreamed news conference; the video is online. And if there was honest confusion about what was in public health orders, well – that’s a four-page document written in plain English and Spanish posted online for public view.
Nonetheless, the edited version of that sentence made the rounds. A political candidate, followed by the state Republican Party, alleged that the governor had banned all candidates from knocking on doors. I also found the quotation and the allegation repeated in several news stories.
And here’s the kicker: An Albuquerque television station called up the governor’s office to check: “Hey, did the governor ban door to door campaigning?” I mean, they could have read the document but okay, why not ask? So the governor’s office said, No. There was no such ban.
And then came their headline: “Governor’s office backtracks on statement about door to door campaigning.”
How does an official backtrack from something they never proposed in the first place?
That’s how misinformation wins. There never was a ban, but through sheer repetition it becomes a political issue anyway.
We don’t have to fall for that.
No governor has ever been perfect. There is plenty of grist for good-faith disagreement and honest debate; and that’s what public service demands.