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Barnstormin’: Baghdad Bob And The New Power Of Words


Barnstormin’: Baghdad Bob And The New Power Of Words

Remember the guy you see in the image both above and below? His real name is Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf but we here in the USA came to know him as Baghdad Bob during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He’d stand up in front of reporters each day and give fanciful tales of how the Iraqi army was mangling the US forces and how the whole thing was going to be a failure. This guy was being paid to say this stuff and he’d go on and on talking about the imminent Iraqi victory as the American tanks were literally closing in around him.

He spread his word the old fashioned way via television. If he had access to  a Twitter feed, a FaceBook page, or an Instagram account he’d have been posting all of his propaganda between cat memes and funny Gif files of Mustangs crashing. But unfortunately for ol’ Baghdad Bob, he didn’t have those means of getting the message out. The world has changed a lot since 2003 and most drastically in how we communicate with each other and how everyone has a platform that Baghdad Bob would have been super envious of for spreading his message, as dumb as it was. Maybe that’s the biggest point. Whether or not what you are saying has any value, you can still rope in a very large audience. Sometimes that’s great and sometimes as we learned firsthand last weekend, it is a nightmare.

Minutes after Ronnie Davis had his wreck at Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina, the video was circulating on the internet. It wasn’t long before I was hitting up people that I knew were at the track trying to get some idea about what was going on with the condition of the well known top sportsman competitor. News then came in that a media person was hurt. We now know that to have been Ian Tocher, but I tipped Chad off and he called our friend Mark Walter with Motormania TV to make sure it was not one of their guys. Maintaining a line with both a guy on the announcing staff at the track and a couple of racers, I just wanted to have accurate information to pass along to the thousands of people at Atlanta Dragway where I was announcing. Then it happened.

A Facebook post appeared stating that Ronnie Davis was dead. This post appeared on Saturday. This post appeared after someone at the track failed to articulate what was actually going on and instead of relaying the actual message put over the PA system they told someone what they thought they heard. That person then jumped on Facebook and made a post.

Within minutes news of the Davis “death” ripsawed through social media. This was all happening at the exact same time that people at Rockingham were telling me nothing had been announced regarding his condition. Not knowing if the man was alive or dead, I announced in Atlanta that he had been in an accident and that I would send more news along when I got it. Meanwhile the Facebook post wound around the internet gathering more and more steam. There were more and more memorial posts, profile photo changes, and posts lamenting the loss of the great racer. Baghdad Bob would have been proud because not only was the information passed long incorrect, it was effective.

Soon the requests started coming in to mention the fact that he had died over the PA system at Atlanta and I refused. I did not know the nature of the crash, who the journalist was that got hurt, and/or the severity of lack there of. The post’s reach spiraled. Respected and well known racers were sharing their condolences and stories. Then a funny thing happened. We found out from PDRA Officials by way of an announcement made at Rockingham that Davis was in fact, alive.

I then spent the next two days trying to convince people that Ronnie Davis was not dead. Not that he was alive, talking and recovering, but simply not dead. Just that he was a alive for that moment, until I heard more. More came in the form of an announcement on Sunday evening that Davis had passed away. Not a speculative announcement, an actual verified report. Then it was real. I mentioned it to someone in the pits and the response was, “Yeah, he died yesterday.” Bob would have been beaming.

In a world where words seem less and less important, they actually have more and more power by the day. Whether any of us want to believe it or not, we have the ability to reach more people instantly than previous generations used to in a lifetime. I had never personally experienced a situation like the one that transpired last weekend. As crummy as it was for me, I cannot imagine what it must have been like for the family of Ronnie Davis who were likely rushing to his bedside and getting messages of condolence regarding his passing while on the way. That’s bad.

Social media thrives on words and it doesn’t matter if they are posted with the accuracy of a national news paper or straight out of the Baghdad Bob playbook. Once they gain traction the genie is out of the bottle. Last weekend that genie told a false narrative that incorrectly defined the last precious hours of a man’s life. That’s not cool.

bob


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6 thoughts on “Barnstormin’: Baghdad Bob And The New Power Of Words

  1. Chevy Hatin' Mad Geordie

    Here in the UK our version of Baghdad Bob was in fact running the country.

    Cue Tony “Weapons of Mass Destruction” Bliar – and that’s a deliberate typo figure it out…

    My thoughts are with Ronnie’s family.

  2. Wolf

    I’m convinced that social media is a fast track back to the dark ages, for exactly the reason you pointed out: the lack of facts and accuracy in the messages. It’s the best thing since forever, to happen to conspiracy theorists and propagandists.

    1. Pat

      Truer words have never been spoken about “social” media. The speed that garbage information travels at is simply astounding.

  3. Luther Hopp

    I was watching the race on live stream and having unfortunately seen many crashes in my over 45 years of race spectating was not optimistic about Ronnie Davis’s chances, Probably anyone who saw it would have been concerned but the last thing to do is speculate “fact” online or anywhere for that matter. The internet, social media and all other forms of instant “fact” are here but have lead many to spread false information as truth and lead many to believe things that are simply not true.

  4. jerry z

    This is why I don’t use Faceplant, Twit, or Instacrap for these very reasons. It’s amazing how people need to be the “first” to post the news, good or bad. and not have the facts first. Seems like facts are irrelevant anymore, just stir the pot.

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