unSpun_ Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation - Brooks Jackson [19]
Much of the public was taken in by the ad. Language does our thinking for us, and people had been fooled in the first place by the statute’s misleading name. After the election, the National Annenberg Election Survey asked respondents to evaluate the truthfulness of this statement: “The assault weapons ban outlawed automatic and semiautomatic weapons.” The result: 57 percent found the statement to be either “very truthful” or “somewhat truthful,” while only 28 percent said it was either “not too truthful” or “not truthful at all.” By a margin of two to one, those who expressed an opinion had the wrong idea.
Even a simple term like “large” becomes misleading in the hands of the California Olive Industry. “California Ripe Olives grow in a variety of sizes: small, medium, large, extra large, jumbo, colossal and super colossal,” the industry website informs us. Of the seven sizes, “large” is actually the third smallest. This sort of silliness seems to be escalating. The Starbucks Corporation doesn’t even use the term “large.” The smallest size on the menu is a “Tall” coffee (twelve ounces); the next size up is a “Grande” (sixteen ounces) and the largest size Starbucks calls “Venti” (twenty ounces).
Such puffery is so common that much of the time we aren’t fooled, and can even make fun of it. When Seattle’s Best coffee shops came up with a new name for their largest coffee, the humorist Dave Barry advised: “Listen, people: You should never, ever have to utter the words ‘Grande Supremo’ unless you are addressing a tribal warlord who is holding you captive and threatening to burn you at the stake. JUST SAY YOU WANT A LARGE COFFEE, PEOPLE.” We think that’s good advice.
Some names really can deceive, however, unless we keep our guard up. The makers of Smoke Away, a dietary supplement that purportedly helps people stop smoking in a week or less, paid $1.3 million in 2005 to settle a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission, which said there was no reasonable basis for the product’s claim. Also in 2005 the FTC announced more than $1 million in settlements against marketers of dietary or herbal supplements misleadingly named Lung Support Formula (which supposedly cured asthma and emphysema), Antibetic Pancreas Tonic (claimed to cure diabetes), and Testerex (supposedly effective in treating 62 percent to 95 percent of cases of erectile dysfunction). The FTC called the claims “false and outrageous.” In all those cases, the product names were mentioned as one factor contributing to the deception.
Don’t assume that just because a law is called an assault weapon ban or a product is called Smoke Away that they really do what their names imply. Always ask, “What’s behind that name? Does it really describe the thing they are trying to sell me? What would be a more accurate name for it?”
TRICK #2: Frame It and Claim It
FEW BUT THE RICH NEEDED TO THINK MUCH ABOUT THE FEDERAL estate tax, because it never touched the vast majority of Americans. In 1992, for example, the tax fell only on the richest 1.3 percent of those who died. But that’s when a group backed by some billionaire families, including the Gallo wine clan and the Blethen family, owners of The Seattle Times, began lobbying to repeal it. They seemed to have so little chance that few paid any attention. But then somebody decided that rather than call the estate tax by its proper and legal name, activists should instead refer to it as the death tax. The man who claims credit for this is James L. Martin, head of the conservative 60 Plus Association. He tells of establishing a “beer and pizza fund” to which he required his employees to contribute $1 every time they slipped and uttered the term “estate tax.