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Introduction:
Mediator Manuel Salinas describes CRS rumor control teams.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Rumor-Control Teams
Manuel Salinas
Former CRS Mediator, Denver Office
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[Full Interview]
Question:
You mentioned rumor control. What exactly is involved in
rumor control?
Answer:
Rumor control, the way we set it up, and we had a gentleman who did that for us in CRS, is
to come up with a telephone number. Then you have people who feed information into a
person or persons at that number, as accurate information as possible. So that if people heard
of something, the community could call that number and say, "Hey we heard that fifty cars are
coming down the highway," and we would verify that and say "yes' or "no". So rumor control
involved getting as accurate information as possible, so that if anybody would call we could
convey the correct information. Because rumors begin when you have something like that and
they are way off the wall, but the person doesn't know that until you try to find out if it's true or
not. The press might call, too. So that's what rumor control was about.
Question:
Who was it who called in the accurate information?
Answer:
CRS people, or the police department, people with authority, not just anybody. Because if
anybody called in, it was difficult for us to justify or check out that information, if any person
just called in. So we would have to depend on ourselves and the police department, the
sheriff's department, things like that. Or city officials, city officials might call in on
something.
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