Professor Lago
Essay 3 Rumor
Final draft
Death Rumor
The president of Venezuela Hugo Cesar Chavez is supposedly dead. On February 25th, 2013 my husband was watching the news when we heard clearly that the president of Venezuela had died 3 days ago. This was not the first time that we heard that news so it was not of a big impact to anyone. Untruth rumors can lead people to disbelieve the truth of what is being said. Many times we hear stories that are true but we do not believe in them just because too many lies are around it.
The rumor started with the cancer disease that he was having around a year ago. Probably one of the people that was not happy with his way of governing the country started saying that he was dead
or that they wish him dead; and from there on the story got bigger and bigger till got to the point of making the news broadcast. The only pictures that were shown of him were old ones. The public started thinking that probably this rumor could be a real one. Most of the time we hear rumors we tend to think that it is not a real one.
One of Knapp’s categorization to a rumor is The pipe-dream or the Wish Rumor (361). This is the type of rumor in which people are wishing for something to happen. It seems that in Venezuela some people were not happy with the president and when the news of his cancer came out it was the perfect time to start rumors about him.
The rumor last a while and at the end it came out to be truth. All of a sudden, the news began showing a new story, the truth one. The president really has died. The myth now is that some people say that he has been dead since Dec, 2012. Now we cannot know for sure if it did happen that way. The people in charge of his life will never unfold the truth. It is now to remain as if he just died.
The rumor of the president’s death was an upcoming true story. It was a coincidence that he died and rumors about his death made sense because of his cancer. The majority of people who are sick with cancer end up dying so people decided to kill him before time.