unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation

Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson
*****

If I were a political operative, I would be dismayed by this book because it lays out for the reader all the tools used by spin-masters in simple, accessible language. Chapter by chapter, the authors explain the indicators and techniques of spin, and our receptiveness to them. For example, the second chapter lists these indicators:

• If its scary be wary
• A story that's too good
• The dangling comparative
• The superlative swindle
• The "pay you Tuesday" con
• The blame game
• Glittering generalities

The next chapter exposes the tricks of spin which match up nicely with the indicators explained in the preceding chapter. The clarity and simplicity with which this is presented makes unSpun unusally valuable and practical. Here is a list of the tricks:

1. Misnomers
2. "Frame it and Claim it"
3. Weasel words
4. Eye candy
5. The average bear
6. The baseline bluff
7. The literally true falsehood
8. The implied falsehood

The authors supply plenty of examples for each trick and explain how the spin is crafted.

But what is it about people that makes them vulnerable to spin? The authors answer that question in chapter four. In short we let language do our thinking for us, have partisan biases, are susceptible to vivid individual examples, can be fooled by our feeling of being right, and -- surprise, surprise -- engage in wishful thinking.

So what can do in the face of these handicaps? The authors supply very practical suggestions in their next two chapters listing mental disciplines and reliable Internet web sites -- including FactCheck.org. This would be a great text for a High School civics class but is a good read for all ages.

Buried Deep: A Retrieval Artist Novel

Kristine Kathryn Rusch
****
This is my second "Recovery Artist" novel and I'm afraid I'm hooked. Recovery Man is a better book, but this one was pretty good as well. Rusch's series is a kind of thought experiment concerning multi-culturalism; the role of networked information and database technologies in a world of reduced privacy, advanced bio-tech; and impersonal, unjust law (at least by human standards). This last is what makes the retrieval artists necessary.

The main conflict in the story is between the Disty, an inscrutible alien race, whose customs and beliefs are very foreign to human understanding, and human customs and beliefs. Disty beliefs and rituals concerning death generate behavior that is "virus like" Beliefs about "contamination" and burials lead to behavior that is irrational by human standards, and deadly for both races.

Miles Flint saves the day with sophisticated search techniques that uncover the solution to "decontaminating" some burials on Mars. The plot is fairly tight, the characterization fully developed, and the evocation on a future world well done. This is a good series.