unSpun_ Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation - Brooks Jackson [60]
www.bls.gov
The Bureau of Labor Statistics collects official statistics on unemployment, jobs, inflation, and wages.
www.census.gov
The U.S. Census Bureau site supplies official statistics on population counts, poverty, household income, health insurance coverage, and home ownership.
www.eia.doe.gov
The Energy Information Administration has official statistics on all sources of energy, including gasoline prices, sources of crude oil, nuclear power, and solar power. The “Kids Page,” more sophisticated than it sounds, provides basic summaries.
www.quackwatch.org
Dr. Stephen Barrett’s respected and thoroughly documented “guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions” about medicine.
www.gao.gov
The Government Accountability Office is a hard-nosed, nonpartisan watchdog agency set up by Congress. The site contains reports on “high risk” programs vulnerable to fraud, waste, and mismanagement. A page on “our nation’s fiscal outlook” explains why GAO believes policy changes are needed to avoid “unsustainable federal deficits and debt” in the future.
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We like to think that FactCheck.org falls into the category of trustworthy websites such as those cited in the box above. Remember, however, that even the best websites can make mistakes. In fact, one way to test whether a site is trustworthy is to note how it treats errors. Does it correct them quickly and openly? Never rely on only one source for important information; look for two or three that are independent of each other.
A word about the very popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which we have not listed as one of our trustworthy sites. We’ve found it to be a convenient place to start researching an unfamiliar subject, and we refer to it often ourselves. But we would never rely on it as an authoritative source because anybody can edit Wikipedia at any time, and there are numerous documented instances of mistakes or deliberate misinformation appearing there. Any information found on Wikipedia must be used with caution and considered subject to verification.
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A Guide to Websites
A great online guide to finding reliable websites is the Librarians’ Internet Index, www.lii.org. It links to thousands of websites that have been screened by professional librarians—people who look things up for a living. Its more than 20,000 entries are organized under 14 main topics and nearly 300 related topics.
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Even wholly biased and partisan sources can be trusted in some respects. The website of a political candidate can tell you exactly what the candidate’s current TV ads are saying, or what his or her current position is on a particular issue. It won’t, however, tell you whether those TV ads are true or false, or whether the candidate previously took a different position and then flip-flopped. By the same token, the website of a product’s manufacturer might be a good source for the product’s list price, its technical specifications, and perhaps even reprints of independent reviews of the product—positive reviews, that is. But don’t expect to find information on safety defects, or independent reviews that recommend a cheaper, better product made by another company.
Blogs can also be useful, but, not surprisingly, they tend to reflect the biases of their creators. In its simplest form, a blog is a personal diary posted for all to see. Anyone can start a new one in minutes at little or no cost, using any one of several services. And many have done so. Technorati.com says it detects 1.6 million new blog postings per day. Blogging is just a pastime for most; 84 percent of bloggers surveyed by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2006 called it either a “hobby” or just “something I do, but not something I spend a lot of time on.” Only about one in three consider their blogs a form of journalism, and 42 percent say they “never” or “hardly ever” spend extra time trying to verify statements that appear on their blogs. So never accept something as fact