Usually when groups invite me to speak, I wind up being asked about:

• The future of print newspapers. (Yes, they will be around for a long time, but that's for another column.)

• Mistakes in the paper. (We make them, factual and grammatical. And we correct them quickly.)

• Why that liberal so-and-so Gil Smart has a column. (Because, love him or — outraged! — hate him, you read him.)

• Does daughter Abigail really says those things at the bottom of this column? (Yes, ask her mother.)

Then it's my turn to ask a question.

"How many of you forward those gang emails we all get without bothering to check them for accuracy? Especially the ones that say, 'The mainstream media don't tell us about this, so it is your duty to let others know.' "

Mainstream media (guilty as charged here) don't print them, because — surprise — many contain half-truths or outright lies.

Now, some emails are amusing, even when I've seen them before. Nothing dies on the Internet. Bad information goes round and round, sometimes with additions.

There's one about actor Lee Marvin, a Marine in World War II, naming the bravest man he served with in combat: Bob Keeshan — Captain Kangaroo. The late Keeshan was a Marine at the end of the war, but did not see combat.

Then there's another children's show star who was a sniper in Vietnam and who wore a sweater to cover his tattoos — Mr. Rogers. One problem. The late Fred Rogers was never in the military.

Or the email that plays a song recorded by Elvis years after his "death"! That it doesn't sound anything like The King doesn't stop people from forwarding it.

Sometimes emails are forwarded because people desperately want to believe them. And no conspiracy theory is too bizarre to dismiss.

As a reader once said, when I told him a story was false, "Well, it should be true."

Other gang emails aren't so harmless.

I asked members of one group how many forward emails about President Obama not being a U.S. citizen. Some hands went up. Why, I asked one man?

"Because I don't like him," he said.

That brought laughter. It should bring moans.

Others pass on those Andy Rooney screeds. Most of them, particularly the racist ones, were not the work of the late curmudgeon. But someone went to a lot of trouble to write them and to convince you that Rooney said them.

Checking the facts is easy. Snopes.com and factcheck.org are two good sites.

But be careful of someone who sends an email that says the story was checked out on Snopes. Or the ones that quote from government documents. Some senders are betting you won't bother to check those sources.

They're often right.

At one meeting, a solid citizen told me it was my responsibility as an ordinary editor to check things, but that it was not necessary for ordinary citizens to do so.

I disagree.

Years ago, it was said that the Internet would free people from having news "filtered" through a newspaper or the TV. To borrow from Bill O'Reilly, you would live in a "no-spin zone."

Turns out some of you can't handle that responsibility. You've given the Internet more spin cycles than a washing machine.

Better (?) with age
"Will you be even more annoying as you grow older?" 16-year-old daughter Abigail asked me.

My reply:

"Bet on it."

Marv Adams can be reached by email at madams@lnpnews.com or mail: Sunday News, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608-1328.