Update: A new twist in this story comes from NPR, which ironically makes a point about the point I was trying to make. This gets more meta by the day:
JUNE 8, 2024: But since that incident made national headlines, the story has taken several turns. Following Harris’ arrest and two-day stint in jail, it was reported that his license was actually supposed to have been reinstated more than two years prior and that a clerical error was responsible for the embarrassing incident.
That, however, is not the case, Angela Benander, director of communications for the Michigan Department of State told NPR.
“This isn't a clerical error. This is a failure of action,” she said.
In a new hearing this week, Judge Simpson makes clear that Harris never actually had an eligible driver’s license. And records from Michigan’s Department of State, obtained by NPR, show this as well.
In Harris’ case, it was his driving privileges that were suspended, not his license, Benander explained.
When he was eligible to have those privileges reinstated, and eventually secure a license, Benander said Harris did not follow the proper steps to make that happen.
“You can have a secretary of state driver's record without ever having an official driver's license. And that's usually because, when you receive a suspension of driving privileges, we will create a record and then list it as suspended,” Benander explained.
“So, in this case, there was a record; it was suspended status. That doesn't mean that he had a license, which it turns out he did not ever have a valid driver's license,” she said.
Harris was ordered back into police custody following this week’s hearing and bailed out by his wife the same day, his attorney, Dionne Webster-Cox said.
“He just wants to be a law-abiding citizen. He wants to be. But bless his heart,” Webster-Cox said.
She said Harris is working to get his driver’s permit now and her office is dedicated to helping him getting properly registered to drive again.
“There's just something about him. It's that kind of, like, lovable goofball,” Webster-Cox said.
Hi,
I’ve been thinking a lot about Corey Harris, the 44-year old man who went viral after Zooming into his court appearance while driving.
The headlines generated were basically all the same: “Man With Suspended Driver's License Dials Into Court Hearing While Driving”.
The headlines said it all, and most people would read no further — and if they did they’d just find a series of paragraphs expanding on the same point but using different words — all written with a kind of glee at how fucking stupid this man was:
The problem was, he joined the May 15 call while driving a vehicle, something that isn’t allowed when a driver’s license is suspended ― trust us on this!
The video of Corey’s confused expressions went viral on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok — no-one really stopping to think why he looked so confused.
He looked confused because a judge had ordered his driving suspension lifted over two years ago. 7News Detroit reported this fact, pointing out it was the court’s fault because they’d never passed those orders on.
“What was I thinking? I was thinking about getting my wife medical help. That’s what I was thinking,” Corey told 7News.
Great — story cleared up, Corey can go back to millions of people realising what they’d been told was incorrect and that maybe he was doing nothing wrong and was actually really stressed out during the whole ordeal.
Of course, as author Jason Pargin pointed out, the story isn’t cleared up because barely anyone will read the stories saying the old story was incorrect. They will march on with their lives, remembering the time that idiot dialed into a court appearance while driving when he wasn’t meant to be driving what an idiot he was so dumb.
The original story was driven to the top of every news service and social media site by metrics and algorithms built to feed us what is often the biggest bullshit of the day. The stories about the story won’t get nearly the same amount of attention.
On top of this, the original stories painting Corey as a criminal still exist, meaning headlines like this will appear in Google searches for many years to come:
Most people only read a headline, and the tiny “updated 16 hours ago” won’t mean a thing. Click through to the piece and you get this:
UPDATE: Newly discovered evidence shows that Corey Harris was actually allowed to have his driving privileges reinstated years ago. You can read the updated story here, while the original piece is below.
That original piece remains, the damage done, the comments on YouTube still featuring the most upvoted, incorrect comments:
This is shitty for Corey Harris, who has a life and a family and now has to un-explain this narrative constantly for God knows how long.
But the structures that allow this to happen are shitty for all of us, who have to live in a world where bad information spreads so easily, quickly becoming our shared reality. We are all living increasingly stressed, busy lives and we simply don’t have the time to fact check everything that comes our way.
And what is coming our way at unfathomable volumes is factually incorrect information, increasingly driven by bad actors.
It’s irritating always having to reference this man, but it’s how people like Donald Trump exist. He knows he can spin bad information faster than any news outlet or individual voter can fact check it.
It’s why the anti-trans brigade can talk about kitty litter in schools and keep getting away with it: No matter how many times it’s debunked, the original bad idea is so strong it remains engrained in millions of brains that never read beyond a headline.
Bad information has simply become a meme that’s impossible to erase.
David.
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You Can't Undo Fake News