Before You Fall, Defeat Deception

Many people have exaggerated at some point in their lives in order to sway another person’s understanding of a particular event or story. While these exaggerations may enhance and add to color to an event or story, they can also distort the truth by creating disillusion in the mind of the recipient. In the book UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of [Disinformation], by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the practice of “spin” is examined and exposed. Jackson and Jamieson show how some company’s advertising practices, or a political party’s agenda are represented through the disillusion of spin. With this information, people should have the ability to recognize and see through the web of consumer advertising and political agendas. The information contained in this book will assist the public in making informed choices about what products to buy, and what political party best represents an individual’s preferences when casting his ballot. Brooks and Jackson provide a guide to lead people out of the darkness of disillusion and into the light of truth.
In Chapter One, the reader is introduced to the many ways that “spin” is spun. In Chapter Two, the specific methods used in the political arena and within the advertising industry, are addressed. Throughout the first two chapters, Jackson and Jamieson focus on advertising and politics to provide examples of how deception and misinformation influence many aspects of life, from political decisions to the type of mouthwash a person chooses to use.
One of the earliest false advertisers was Clark Stanley. His product was snake oil, and the oil was supposed to cure everything from “pain” to “lameness”. Unfortunately for those who bought the snake oil, this was just one of the many cure-all’s, that people have spent money on and received no benefit from having done so. In 2006, Emu Oil, was introduced. It was an expensive product that produced no benefit to the buyer, but resulted in a decrease in their pocketbook. Jackson and Jamieson remind us that even though the products change, the techniques used to deceive continue in the same underhanded way that they have since the days of Clark Stanley’s snake oil. The price has just gone up.
We are advised that rampant deception surrounds us. “Spin pervades both commerce and politics, and most of it is not so funny” (5). Spin can be matter of life and death, as was the case when Seville Marketing, sold an at home kit for HIV testing. They claimed the test was 99.4 percent accurate. However, when tested by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it was found that 59.3% of the kits had inaccurate results. Life and death were at stake in the case of the HIV home testing kits. The disease was spread through false advertising. This is one of the extreme cases of false advertising and the debilitating cost it can have on an unsuspecting public. This example confirms the need to be aware and be on guard against potential life altering choices we make based on false advertising. It is a horrifying thought to think about the people who bought those kits. They were putting the security of their lives and others into the results of a test kit that proved to be inaccurate.
According to Jackson and Jamieson, the methods of deception are consistent and not so hard to recognize. One of the main reasons for the deception is profit. It is built into advertising and is even included into the business plans of some corporations. Politicians use deception to sway the public to their own agendas. They deliberately fill the minds of the voters with disinformation about their opponents and about their own policies. They take aim at certain aspects of their oppositions’ viewpoint by only giving partial facts or simply by misrepresenting the facts. The deception that occurs in the political arena has far reaching consequences for the voters. People can be swayed to cast their vote based on inaccurate information, and may end up supporting a person who represents a position that they are not in favor of. This is evident in the election of 2004. Bush accused Kerry of proposing to raise taxes on 900,000 small-business owners. In reality, the maximum number of small-business owners who were to be affected-even by $1- was barely more than half the number the Bush ad claimed. So it flows back and forth between the political parties. There is equal deception from both sides of the political arena. It isn’t just concentrated within one political party, but exists in both, and if people are not properly informed, it can have devastating consequences to the unsuspecting public.
There are many ways deception is presented. It can be in the form of false advertising, outright deception, implied deception, or simply not giving all the facts. Whatever the form, it comes at us from all angles of society. The “Truth in Advertising” laws are insufficient to protect the public from its ravages. In Chapter Two, Jackson and Jamieson take a closer look at how the tools are used and they provide warning signs to alert people to the weapons of mass deception.
Jackson and Jamieson begin their quest toward dismantling the “spinners” by revealing their methods and techniques. The main methods used include: fear, making claims that are too good to be true, making comparisons without giving a qualifier, using superlatives, pay you later technique and the blame game. All of these tactics serve as warning signs that the public can use to avoid being influenced and deceived by misinformation.
Fear seems to be one of the most effective means employed. Jackson and Jamieson refer to it as “FUD” using fear, uncertainty and doubt to persuade people to buy their companies product and to discourage consumers from buying another’s equal product. This was evidenced when Gene Amdahl, a former IBM employee, tried to market his newly invented mainframe computer. IBM used the “FUD” factor to create doubt in the minds of potential customers, causing people to fear purchasing his product, even though it was cheaper, faster and more reliable than IBM’s. The warning sign here is “If it’s scary, be wary”.
When presented with claims that are dramatic it should send up our red flags. Most stories that sound too good to be true, often are. We are warned “Extravagant claims are just too easy to accept when they match biases” (30). People want to believe there are short cuts to hard things. People spend thousands of dollars each year on quick fixes or get rich schemes. We need to ask ourselves, “Am I buying this just because I want it to be true? What’s the evidence?” Jackson and Jamieson describe it as data in service of technology. Matching our ideals to the products claims, regardless of whether or not the product does what it claims to do, we still want to believe a product does what it says, so we fall for the advertising claim, and buy the product.
Things that are too good to be true are often enhanced by what Jackson and Jamieson describe as “The Dangling Comparative.” It is the use of descriptive words such as bigger, better, faster, without stating what the item is being compared to. Politicians are very adept at employing this technique. This manifested itself in the 2004 Presidential campaign, Bush accused of Kerry of being in favor of raising taxes. The truth behind it was, Bush was counting the votes Kerry had made in favor of increasing taxes, as well as counting Kerry’s votes against proposed tax cuts. Hence, misrepresenting the facts and using superlatives in his advertising campaign to support his position.
Closely aligned with “The Dangling Comparative,” is the next warning sign, “The Superlative Swindle”. Using terms such as most, highest, and biggest should alert us to be on guard against information that is not an accurate representation of truth. Bush was accused of having the worst environmental record in United States history. The worst, compared to what measure? In reality, the EPA did not exist until 1970. Consequently, there is no way to measure the current by a past that was not monitored by the same government agency. When descriptive words in the form of highest and biggest appear in an ad or proceed from the mouth of a politician, it is a sign to warn us of an impending swindle.
The next warning sign we are introduced to is the “Pay you Tuesday Con”. The idea behind this warning sign is to beware of trickery. We can have it now, but we will pay for it later. This practice leads nations as well as individual consumers into a spiral of deficit spending that only serves to saddle a future generation with yesterday’s baggage and bills. Not to mention the clutter that the consumer acquires in the process. The pay you Tuesday element should raise our suspicions.
When all else fails, in the bag of tricks, people can always blame someone else for their problems, the world’s problems, etc. The blame game is one of the oldest practices in life, children practice it, politicians practice it, a lot of people do it from time to time. When you hear it creep into the speech of a politician, beware. That person is most likely walking on a weak platform. “People who find their position weak, or indefensible, often attack” (37). Politicians continuously point fingers at each other. Republicans blame Democrats, Conservatives blame Liberals, and it crosses back and forth across the party lines. A good rule of thumb is; when a person is pointing their finger at another individual, there are always three fingers pointing back at the person doing the pointing.
The final warning sign given is the use of “Glittering Generalities”. This is described as the use of attractive sounding, but vague terms. Vague terms are employed to try and get the consumer to buy a product, without asking too many questions. It is also used by politicians. Some examples include politicians making promises to cut taxes on “the middle class”, but not defining “middle class”. A politician can talking about affordable housing, but not define affordable in terms of dollars. What is affordable to one person may be quite out of the budget for another person. Information that is presented in this vague manner is a sure sign that the person making the claim does not want to define what they mean, because to do so, puts limits on their promises.
There are many methods of deception used within the scope of advertising and the political arena. Some of the most damaging are the false claims that products do more than what they do in actuality. Most of these can be categorized under the warning signs of: extravagant claims, dangling comparatives, and superlatives swindle. These categories focus the most on misleading the public by false claims. In some instances it can mean life and death. In the political arena, it can mean four years of being governed by political policies and agendas that the person does not support. It can mean that we are forced to accept laws that repel us. While there is freedom to advertise, politicize, and make promises, it is best to be informed and guarded when the “spin” begins to fly.
When a company markets a product that makes health related claims that a person bases their sense of security on, that product needs to live up to its advertising claims. If a product makes a claim to be 99.4% accurate, then it needs to be 99.4% accurate, it can’t be 59.3% accurate. Companies who sell products for health related matters, for example: medical test kits, heart medication, blood pressure medication, diabetes products, need to present the honest information about their products. Consumers are basing life and death choices on the reliability of the marketed products and the products need to fulfill their advertisers’ claims.I was really struck by the HIV test kits since that has such far reaching consequences into so many peoples lives. In the political arena, it is important to know a partisan’s true platform. With the bombardment of ads thrown at the public during political campaigns, it really becomes a confusing mess to sort out the truth from the disillusion. Unless a person closely follows the candidate and does their own research into a candidates’ history and actions, it would be very easy to be deceived into making choices and forming opinions based on the prepared speeches the politicians give, and the negative ad claims from the opponents. It is imperative to do the research behind a candidate. This will assure that the individual truly knows where that person stands. If a person doesn’t do the research, a person can end up supporting an agenda that conflicts with that person’s own moral and ethical values. Spin is out there everywhere, lies, deception, fake claims, it is up to each individual to beware, and be aware in order to avoid falling into the web of the spin masters.

Works Cited
Jackson, Brooks, and Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. UnSpun: Finding Facts in a World of
[Disinformation]. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2007