unSpun_ Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation - Brooks Jackson [81]
We are grateful as well to the FactCheck.org team in D.C., including Justin Bank, James Ficaro (who migrated to Philadelphia for law school), and Emi Kolawole, and to Miriam White, Jeff Gottfried, and Josh Gesell at the Annenberg Policy Center office in Philadelphia for sourcing and giving everything a second and sometimes third check. Emi in particular deserves our thanks for the endless hours she spent reviewing each word of the book for factual accuracy. Her work kept a number of errors from making their way into print. Any that remain are our responsbility alone. We also thank Jolanta Benal, whose uncommon attention to detail demonstrated that good copy editing is not a lost art after all.
Finally, we couldn’t have written this book without the indulgence of the two to whom we dedicate it: Bev, who has put up with Brooks for nearly thirty-four years, and Bob, who has done the same with me for just over thirty-eight. And in a world of competing claims, that one is a certain fact.
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON
Philadelphia
October 2006
To what Kathleen says I would add this: I am grateful to her for allowing me the honor of being “lead” author on this book, but it has been a true collaboration. The words here are mostly mine, but the thoughts and ideas expressed here come from many months of talking and messaging between the two of us. Many of them, and perhaps most, would never have occurred to me working alone.
BROOKS JACKSON
California, Maryland
January 2007
SOURCES
To make this book as easy to read as possible, we’ve mostly omitted formal footnotes, end notes, and appendixes giving full details on the source of each fact or quote. We believe most of our sources are clearly stated in the text of the book. For those wishing more formal, academic sourcing, however, a full set of footnotes may be found at www.FactCheck.org/unSpun. We will also attempt to post on that site any relevant updates, clarifications, or (should the need arise) corrections.
About the Authors
BROOKS JACKSON runs the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s award-winning website FactCheck.org and was an investigative reporter for The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN. He is the author of Honest Graft: Big Money and the American Political Process and Broken Promise: Why the Federal Election Commission Failed. He lives in Washington, D.C.
KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author or coauthor of eleven books, including Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy, Packaging the Presidency, and The Press Effect.
A Random House Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2007 by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jackson, Brooks.
unSpun : finding facts in a world of disinformation by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson.font>
p. cm.
1. Deception—United States. 2. Deceptive advertising—United States. 3. Communication in politics—United States. 4. Truthfulness and falsehood—United States. I. Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. II. Title. III. Title: Finding facts in a world of disinformation.
BF637.D42J33 2007
177’.3—dc22 2006050437
www.atrandom.com
eISBN: 978-1-58836-582-8
v3.0
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction A World of Spin
Chapter 1 From Snake Oil to Emu Oil
Chapter 2 A Bridesmaid’s Bad Breath Warning Signs of Trickery
Chapter 3 “Tall” Coffees and Assault Weapons Tricks of the Deception Trade
Chapter 4 UFO Cults and Us Why We Get Spun
Chapter