Jackson: Unspun
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Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, unSpun : Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation. New York : Random House, 2007. 195 pages, illustrated, with index.
I liked this book. It's a book that I thought deserved a more catchy opening than "I liked this book", but that seems to sum up my reaction pretty well.
The subject of the book is "spin", presenting factual information with omissions, hyperbole, prevarications, and other distortions that bend facts to match one's political agenda. It's the modern fashion in propaganda.
Through a number of interesting case studies, the authors examine contemporary approaches to spinning, in order to help the reader identify the spin and uncover the underlying facts. They identify different tricks for spinning the facts, adeptly revealing the tactics used by Wall Street, the government, and politicians as they attempt to manipulate public opinion.
The authors provide handy summaries and definitions of various spin tactics, provide warning signs to help spot spin, and encapsulate lessons learned in handy rules of thumb for detecting spin and how to deal with the information as it is presented to the public. They also provide, in their resources, URLs for websites that are useful for fact checking.
The book is timely, setting the stage for the coming election. The authors are trying to education information consumers--hence, voters--about how to use the internet to arm themselves against the onslaught of political spin sure to accompany the campaigning.
-- Notes by RRT
