Is it an Email, an Instant Message or a Text Message?

The scandal about former Republican Congressman Mark Foley's salacious instant messages with underage male pages at Congress is rocking the GOP.   Today's news is that Foley also sought to rendezvous with the teens, not just to trade dirty messages with them.  He says he has checked into a facility to help him deal with this behavior, and with alcoholism.

I wish him well. As Helen pointed out over the weekend, this is a sign of sickness rather than evil.  If it turns out that House Republican leaders knew about the explicit communications earlier than they claim, Speaker Hastert should resign.  But, from what we know now, it seems to me that Republicans just wanted to believe the best about Foley rather than face the ugly truth.  This is what families do about troubled relatives, and exactly what the Democrats would have done in a similar circumstance. I refuse to hop on the partisan smear train (a frequent mode of travel for me) for this one.

The most amusing aspect of the story is the media's inability to distinguish between emails, instant messages via AOL Instant Messenger, and text messages via cell phone. Foley may have used all modes of communication, but the reports use them interchangeably. For example, this morning Cokie Roberts spoke about "two sets of emails" by Foley; a somewhat inappropriate set, and a horribly graphic set.  In fact, the horribly graphic set contains instant messages communicated in real time.  At least NPR's other reporters are aware of the phenomenon of instant messaging. However, those reports called it "text messaging."  That's literally true, but I don't think it's what they meant.

This is obviously not the most critical part of this story. But let's remember that these pages are 16 and 17 years old.  They're too cool to bother with email, for the most part.  Part of Foley's charm, actually, is that he understands how kids communicate and responds accordingly.  If our major media sources actually want any consumers thirty years from now, they had better figure out how to do the same thing.