{"id":12982,"date":"2008-08-27T09:17:54","date_gmt":"2008-08-27T16:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/08\/27\/what-is-truth-2.html"},"modified":"2008-08-27T09:17:54","modified_gmt":"2008-08-27T16:17:54","slug":"what_is_truth_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/27\/what_is_truth_2.html","title":{"rendered":"“What is truth?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ginny shares (through a couple of hops<\/a>) an interesting article by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt about, ultimately, why smear campaigns work, and what journalists can do about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The first part is the best, as it gathers up all sorts of rather disheartening info about how the brain processes information. Bottom line: Mr. Spock we ain’t.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. We tend to remember (and credit) information that supports our opinions and forget (or discredit) info that doesn’t.<\/li>\n
  2. We tend to disassociate info from its original source, and ultimately associate it with sources we trust (we trust the info, we trust the source, so the info must have been from the source). That disassociation further blurs the truthfulness into “truthiness.”<\/li>\n
  3. We tend to remember stuff that is emotion-laden.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So take the above items together, and all you have to do is come up with some fear-laden piece of misinformation that plays into concerns that people already have, repeat it enough times, and people will eventually take it as not only true, but something they heard from a reliable source.<\/p>\n

    Karl Rove is one smart puppy.<\/p>\n

    The article’s recommendations on how journalists can combat this are a bit more iffy, if only because they assume (a) journalists (and their editors and publishers) are themselves unbiased and (b) journalists can discern truth from falsehood.<\/p>\n

    The recommendations are also a scosh controversial because they assume that the purpose of journalism is to discern the truth, as to report on what’s being said and done. The two are not always the same thing (obviously), and journalists who pursue the former are likely to be labeled as politically motivated by those who don’t agree with (or who have a vested interest against) what the journalist portrays as true.<\/p>\n

    That said, they’re worth a read-through:<\/p>\n

    1. “State the facts without reinforcing the falsehood”: In particular, remember that repeating a false rumor can reinforce it, even if it’s repeated simply to debunk it. As part of this, reporting on what less reliable sources are talking about (“Word on the street from Drudge”) runs the same risk. That’s tricky, both because of the competitive pressures of the journalistic world and because it’s tough to debunk a rumor without actually talking about it.<\/p>\n

    2. “Tell the truth with images”: Because folks process so much visually, it’s important to remember the old saw of “a picture’s worth a thousand words.” This ties in with the previous point — using a picture that reflects the falsehood (esp. the falsehood itself) while debunking is sending mixed messages to the brain. Make sure your images, of course, are accurate and fair.<\/p>\n

    3. “Provide a compelling debunking”: Simply saying a smear is false, or unsupported, or unsubstantiated, isn’t debunking (and falls prey to #1). Showing how <\/em>it is false, explaining how someone might have misinterpreted (or misrepresented) the facts is a critical part. It also provides a firmer basis for calling something false (rather than just a “nuh-uh!”<\/em>)<\/p>\n

    4. “Discredit the source”: This plays on the emotions, by “smearing” (with truth, of course) the source of the smear. The most controversial item, perhaps, and certainly can devolved into a tit-for-tat set of accusations and counter-accusations. It doesn’t address the truth, per se, but, as they say on TV, “Goes to credibility, your honor.”<\/p>\n

    Again, a key problem with all of these suggestions is that they can be easily twisted by the unscrupulous — masking facts by spinning them, telling falsehoods with images, being compelling (emotionally), and, of course, discrediting your opponents. But, then, if it were easy, anyone could do it.<\/p>\n

    The authors actually have a book and a blog. Looks interesting<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ginny shares (through a couple of hops) an interesting article by Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt about, ultimately, why smear campaigns work, and what journalists can do about it. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":136833,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/06\/24\/the-media-bias-chart-2018.html","url_meta":{"origin":12982,"position":0},"title":"The Media Bias Chart (2018)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 24-Jun-18 3:37pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I had to drill down several levels to find the source for this oft-forwarded (and recently updated) chart, but it was worth it, both to see where it came from and to look at some of the reasoning that went into it (the author has a good multiple-part article starting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Media-Bias-Chart_Version-3.1_Watermark-min.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Media-Bias-Chart_Version-3.1_Watermark-min.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Media-Bias-Chart_Version-3.1_Watermark-min.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":133489,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/15\/loose-lips-trump-slips.html","url_meta":{"origin":12982,"position":1},"title":"Loose Lips Trump Slips","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 15-May-17 11:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Excellent article on the implications of the WaPo (and, after that, Reuters, and NYT) allegations that Trump casually boasted to Russian officials about some cool intel the US had, aren't we awesome, aren't I awesome, etc.Since those stories came out, both national security advisor McMaster and Secretary of State Tillerson\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10316,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/02\/19\/book_review_freakonomics.html","url_meta":{"origin":12982,"position":2},"title":"Book Review: Freakonomics","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 19-Feb-07 7:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"I got the book a couple of Christmases back from my brother-in-law's family, but never quite got round to reading it. Did manage to pick up the audiobook version, though...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/stars4.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7928,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/07\/20\/picture_perfect.html","url_meta":{"origin":12982,"position":3},"title":"Picture perfect","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 20-Jul-05 6:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"When I commented on implementing the \"YDSF\" CSS drop shadows for images here, Ginny noted that the solution she used was a bit simpler, requiring just a single div statement....","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10700,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/16\/thats_entertainment_3.html","url_meta":{"origin":12982,"position":4},"title":"That’s Entertainment!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Nov-06 7:19am","format":false,"excerpt":"Ginny posts (and quotes, in case the story vanishes behind a pay wall archive) an article on the Episcopal bishop of a rural Illiinois diocese, Peter Beckwith -- who, frankly,...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":127519,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/14\/you-cant-believe-anything-they-say.html","url_meta":{"origin":12982,"position":5},"title":""You can't believe anything THEY say"","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Aug-15 4:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not a huge number of surprises here about the trust given by people in different parts of the political spectrum to different media outlets \/ sites:http:\/\/www.journalism.org\/2014\/10\/21\/political-polarization-media-habits\/pj_14-10-21_mediapolarization-01\/A few thoughts:- Liberals tend to trust more sites than conservatives. Is that because the media as a whole are more liberal, that there are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/PJ_14.10.21_mediaPolarization-015B15D.pngimgmax%3D660.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}