• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 750 0

one voter will change the way presidents or CIA directors or news organizations do their jobs. We don’t expect that a single customer can bring about an end to bogus sales pitches. However, we do think that a movement of citizens can change these things. Start with the little things, such as what cold remedy to buy. Practice the habits of mind and the factchecking skills we’ve suggested here. Apply those methods to more important matters. Then demand better. Don’t reward those who disrespect facts, by buying their products or by voting for them. Do insist that they respect facts, respect you, and respect your intelligence and good sense. If enough of us do that, we believe that eventually our leaders will follow. When a group you support gets something wrong, speak up and ask them to correct it, as many NARAL supporters did when their group ran that ad we mentioned falsely accusing John Roberts of endorsing violence. If all sides in the political debate did that, the quality of discussion would rise.

You think our theory is goofy? It’s up to you to show us the evidence. Try what we’re suggesting. Prove us wrong.

1 Famous people often are misquoted (see “False Quotes” box on chapter 7), but this quote is genuine. Tversky’s collaborator, Nobel Prize–winning Princeton professor Daniel Kahneman, told us that both he and Tversky often repeated the remark in conversation and that Tversky probably came up with it first.

Return to text.

2 There’s a scholarly argument to be made that everybody has some sort of bias, and therefore there’s no possibility of a neutral viewpoint. In a philosophical sense that may well be so, but it’s not relevant here. As a practical matter we find we’re more likely to get trustworthy information from disinterested sources than from advocates.

Return to text.

3 In 2006, it was estimated that only 0.3 percent of those who died that year would be subject to the estate tax, because the first $2 million of each estate was excluded from taxation. In 1999, only the first $600,000 was excluded, and the richest 1.3 percent paid tax, as noted in Chapter 3.

Return to text.

Acknowledgments

A jointly authored book is invariably written in the voice of one of its authors. In academic circles, at least, that person’s name appears first on the title page. The lead author is usually the one who has done the heavy lifting on the project, as well. Both are the case with unSpun. As the second author, I can certify both of those statements as fact.

Although not unheard-of, collaboration between an academic and a veteran of a wire service (The Associated Press), a major newspaper (The Wall Street Journal), and cable news (CNN) is a bit unusual. We are not sure how it works, and on most days are at least somewhat surprised that it does. Reducing the collaboration to its essence, Brooks brings to this book (and to FactCheck.org, which he directs) a nose for news, a talent for crafting fluent prose on deadline, and a desire to write on or near the Chesapeake Bay; I bring bibliographies of scholarly studies, a passing knowledge of how ads deceive, and an eagerness to add cryptic notes to anything Brooks has written. And we share the belief that Signe Wilkinson is an editorial cartoonist par excellence.

Brooks and I cooked up the idea of FactCheck.org out of our common concern about the seeming demise of fact in politics and out of respect for the deadlines and day-to-day pressures of journalism that make it difficult for reporters in already overstretched and understaffed media outlets to take on the task. We decided to write unSpun because we both believe that smart, informed citizens know some important things about detecting deception that can be captured in book form.

The third person on our team is Signe Wilkinson, who not only created the cartoons that you see throughout the book but also acted as our designated critic-in-chief. The fourth is our Random House editor, Tim Bartlett. Tim, who edited an earlier book of Kathleen’s, both broadened the scope of unSpun and pruned its length. And he summoned