UnSpun Essay
Chapter 1 & 2
Teresa Troyer
July 3, 2008
Authors, Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Jamieson wrote, "un-Spun finding facts in a world of [disinformation]", to attempt to unravel and reveal the deception and lies that come at us, GQ Public, from advertisers and politicians, on a daily basis. In a world of mixed signals and misinformation we need to educate ourselves to the reality of disinformation and learn to identify when we are hearing it. The information we hear and accept can mean the difference between life and death or electing the wrong person into office.

Let’s take a look at what Jackson and Jamieson have to say about disinformation. They go back one hundred years to Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil, in 1906. They show how his tactics for baseless claims of a cure all then, are still as underhanded today. Jackson and Jamieson, found another animal oil product called, “Deception Wrinkle-Cheating Cream”. The advertisers claim with use of their Emu Oil, “it was possible your wrinkles will no longer even exist .” Like the Snake Oil it boasted great wonders for the consumer, yet when investigated the manufactures could not provide proof of their claims.

“Spin” is a polite word for deception. Spinners mislead by means that range from subtle omissions to outright lies. Spin pervades both commerce and politics. Jackson and Jamieson write, “Whether the spin is political, commercial, or ideological, and whether the stakes are trivial or life and death, the ways by which we are deceived are consistent and not so hard to recognize.”

Political Snake Oil is where politicians will tell you pretty much anything to sway your vote or support. One such example is George W. Bush speaking to the voters about becoming “energy independent.” To achieve this goal would require huge changes that he, nor his opponent John Kerry cared to propose.

Jackson and Jamieson say, “Candidates want to avoid discussing politically painful solutions during an election year, or ever. But there’s real harm in pretending that there are easy solutions to big problems, or that the problems don’t exist.

The deception comes on many levels, it could be an outright lie, or deliberately filling voters’ heads with disinformation about their opponents and about their own policies, or it could be that they merely implying what they want you to believe. Some politicians not only deceive the voters with false claims, but they even deceive members of their own parties.

Yet the public’s view on political issues may not just swayed by the politicians. Jackson and Jamieson write, “ Michael Moore’s movie Fahrenheit 9/11 left many viewers with the impression that President Bush has approved a special flight to allow relatives of Osama bin Laden, who lived in the US, to get out of the country without being questioned, while US airspace was closed in the days immediately following 9/11. While 9/11 commission found that not to be true. The FBI gathered the bin Laden family members together and questioned many of them and then flew them out a full week after the airspace was reopened.”

In advertizing, Jackson and Jamieson found that deception can be bad for your health. This can be anything from false advertising of something like Listerine, or as serious as Discreet, a home test for HIV. As with Discreet, the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention for that 59.3% of the tested kits provided inaccurate results. The FTC offered no estimate of how many HIV-infected persons might have been lulled into a false sense of security by an erroneous negative reading.

So how do we spot all of this deception? Jackson and Jamieson listed a few warning signs for you to look for when watching ads or listening to a politician’s speech.
• Warning sign: If it’s scary, be wary.
• Warning sign: A story that’s “Too Good”
• Warning sign: The Dangling Comparative. Larger, Better, Faster
• Warning sign: The Superlatives Swindle - words such as most, highest, biggest in history or smallest ever.
• Warning sign: The Blame Game
• Warning sign: The “Pay You Tuesday” con.
• Warning sign: Glittering Generalities

After reading just the first two chapters of Jackson and Jamieson’s, un-Spun finding facts in a world of [disinformation], I am even more disheartened by the world around us. Being a person with a type “A” personality, I see things as they are right or they are wrong, you are telling the truth or you are not.

It is wrong that advertisers are able to put out false claims about their product that may endanger the lives of the public. Case in point, Seville Marketing from Canada sold a the product called Discreet, a home test for HIV. Seville claimed its product was 99.4% accurate, but the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention found that 59.3% of the tested kits provided inaccurate results. This included both false HIV-positive results and false HIV-negative results. In May 2004 the FTC sued Seville but it wasn’t until May 18, 2005 that the case was settled. Seville paid no fines but were prohibited the company from selling its test kids or making deceptive claims. By then how many lives were affected by this disinformation? The FTC offered no estimate of how many HIV-infected persons might have been lulled into a false sense of security by an erroneous negative reading.

Truth-in-advertising laws give some protection from false claims in commercial advertisements but a lot still get through. It could be months before regulators can get it off the air. With creative thinking many advertisers have learned to weasel-word their commercials so that their claims are literally accurate yet still misleading.

As Jackson and Jamieson said, “As we hope is becoming clear, respect for facts isn’t a major concern in the advertising industry, and is far too rare in politics.” Knowing that we can’t trust what we hear about products that we purchase everyday is bad enough, but then we turn to those that we place in power of our governments. I’m talking about every elected position all the way from our local Sheriff to the President of the United States. They actually have a legal right to lie in their television and radio ads. There is no federal law requiring truth in political ads at all.

What you need to remember is that advertisers and politicians will write their ads and speeches to play on the fears and emotions of the listeners. So we need to be active listeners and approach claims cautiously when they are too dramatic, especially when we want them to be true. Remember that extravagant claims are just too easy to accept when they match our biases. Watch out for these warning signs, they are thrown at us on a daily basis. When we are told that something is bigger, better, higher, then just ask “compared to what?”