Posted on 02/18/2004 7:45:53 PM PST by KQQL
One week ago, Alexandra Polier was just another anonymous 27-year-old New York transplant with a master’s degree in journalism, some Associated Press clips and a network of ambitious friends. But on Feb. 17, when the Daily News and God knows how many other newspapers, television newscasts and Web sites plastered her black-and-white picture, with its knowing, confident gaze, on their covers, b-roll and home pages, Ms. Polier became something else: an instant digital celebrity whom, despite her reluctance to participate in the media circus, she had unwittingly helped create.
Forget the speculation about whether Ms. Polier actually had an affair with the Presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, which both have denied. Forget that her parents first said unflattering things about the Senator to the British papers and then a few days later, pledged to vote for him for President. Forget that the Malvern, Penn., native looks a bit like Monica Lewinsky.
The point is that somewhere on the assembly line of media sausage production—whether it be in the land of Drudge, Fleet Street or ABC News—the switch got flipped that identified Ms. Polier as a bona fide news story, one that would make the world forget about Janet Jackson’s 40-year-old breast.
What happened next is what happens—and what will happen—to every child of the digital revolution who has ever filled out a user profile, I.M.’d her friends with idle gossip or programmed her browser to accept cookies: An army of reporters and gossip columnist went to their keyboards, called up their favorite search engines and began to construct a digital doppelgänger of Alexandra Polier from her Friendster profile, her Associated Press and Columbia News Service bylines, and every little crumb and clue she had left behind in the bottomless storage vaults of the Internet. What cracks were left were filled in by the thick, spittle-moistened glue of dozens of bloggers who knew someone who knew someone, or didn’t know anyone but had a great theory. DudeMan News, Frappy Doo Forums, SpinReport.com, nutsanddolts.com Rantburg.com and, speaking of sausage, Sirlinksalot.net, were right in there with Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, The Wall Street Journal, Andrew Sullivan, The New York Times and ABC, offering what little information they had about Ms. Polier and creating a buzz that recalled a certain green-hued porn film starring Paris Hilton.
On Feb. 17, if you plugged "Alex Polier" into Google’s search engine, it produced 1,020 hits. On Nexis, it pulled up 111 articles. The name "Alexandra Polier" spawned 434 Google hits and 93 Nexis articles.
Clues to Ms. Polier could also be found on the Columbia News Service’s Web site. In the spring of 2002, for instance, Ms. Polier wrote "The Return of the Food Confessional," an article about New York Times food columnist Amanda Hesser and her beau, Mr. Latte. "We first learned of ‘Mr. Latte’ last fall when Amanda Hesser publicly admitted that the affair had begun. She kept his identity a secret as she tried to reconcile his cheeseburger desires with her filet mignon lifestyle. We cringed as she described their first dinner party, her exacting tastes almost driving them apart." Ms. Polier also wrote articles on Bowlmor Lanes and the Westminster Dog Show.
The problem is that, as with so much information that’s found in a environment encrusted with irony and cynicism and much colder than the medium cool of television, the data about Ms. Polier can be interpreted in many different ways.
Take her Friendster profile. In the "About Me" section, Ms. Polier described herself as "just another hot piece of ass with a philosophy degree and a love for old movies." (Later, she lists such celluloid classics as Die Hard, Clueless and Jerry Maguire among her favorite films.) She listed her occupation as "journalist/socialite" and indicated that "I’m afraid of death, hospitals and insects," "I can’t spell" and that she wants "to travel the world reporting on injustices while taking the time to enjoy and umbrella drink when appropriate."
Under "Status," Ms. Polier filled in "Open Marriage," and in a section where friends of the Friendster subject can provide testimonials, someone named "Yaron"—presumably her fiancé Yaron Schwartzman, whose family home Ms. Polier is reportedly staying at in Kenya for the moment, wrote: "I know alex in the old testament way, and I can tell you is more fun then when the jews left Egypt and moses banged down his staff, and … well, let me put it this way, she isn’t kidding about the open marriage thing. She always happens to have lots of cute slightly unbalanced girlfriends which should make most of the men on this site very happy."
There has been some speculation that the profile is fake, but the Friendster site indicates that it was created in May 2003, which would suggest that, if it is a hoax, it’s a well-planned one. Most likely, Ms. Polier’s Friendster profile is composed of the same kind of flip, narcissistic boasts found in the yearbooks of wide-eyed college graduates who, speaking of Clueless, have no idea that dumb, unguarded comments made in the last wicked rush of responsibility-free youth have a way of boomeranging later in life—especially in a culture where practically everything is digitally stored and easily retrieved.
And with Ms. Polier obviously unwilling to elaborate on the Internet trail of personal information that she has left behind her, the information is open to all sorts of misinterpretation in a media that loves to be both puritanical and prurient at the same time.
But perhaps the generation most vulnerable to the pitfalls of the digital age will also be the most cognizant of its ramifications. An article in the Columbia Spectator headlined "Journalism Students Rule Out Rumors" recounted a group of Columbia J-school students—including a blogger named Saheli Datta (’04)—attempts to determine whether the Alexandra Polier who graduated from the master’s program in 2003 was indeed the woman who had been linked to Sen. Kerry. After tracking down her clips and being stonewalled by a dean who denied them access to a photo of Ms. Polier, the students reached this conclusion: "the flimsy, inconsistent reports weren’t worth the reputation of a classmate." According to the Spectator, Ms. Datta even attempted to "rehabilitiate [sic] the Google searches of the name ‘Alex Poiler’ by posting links to the AP stories written under that byline."
"It’s sad," Ms. Datta told the Spectator. "She was such a strong Google search; she had a great set of articles. I hope it’s not going to be a big story."
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