One of the participants at last Saturday’s New England News Forum was Howard Schneider, the Dean of the School of Journalism and Director of the Center for News Literacy at Stoney Brook University (which is part of the SUNY system and is on Long Island).  Schneider, who spent his pre-academic career as the editor of Newsday, explained that when he started the program, he failed to realize the extent to which students required instruction not just in learning the tools of journalism but in becoming a reasonable consumer of news.  He said that every year, one-third of the students struggle to find news sources they can depend on, one-third believe everything they hear, and the final one-third don’t believe anything they hear and are riddled with cynicism. 

 My guess is the entire country falls into those three categories in roughly the same proportions.  How else would things like questioning the war records of John Kerry, Max Cleland or even John McCain gain traction with anyone, let alone sizable chunks of the American public.  All along I thought the Swift boat strategy was some ingenious Karl Rove authored strategy to attack Kerry, not on his weaknesses, but on his strengths.  The one-third rule brings us to a different conclusion.  It says that when attacking an opponent, throw out the most outrageous, outlandish, slanderous lies you can imagine and, as long as you say them with a straight face, a big chunk of the public will buy it no matter what.