Examples of Truthiness at Work

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Dear Smarties:

I have noted a couple of examples of the ramifications of the “truthiness” syndrome in the press this weekend.

Yesterday (2/6), the Herald-Journal ran this wonderful letter from a guy in Smithfield named Russ Larsen, titled “Gore & Co. distorting facts,” about what he calls “all the recent ‘hoopla’ about global warming.” Click here for the full letter. Note the “facts” Mr. Larsen is citing. Wherever you stand on the question of global warming and environmental change, this guy’s understand of reality is a little skewed. I’m not saying he doesn’t believe what he’s saying, but why does he believe it?

Another example is yesterday’s appearance at the Tea Party convention in Nashville by Sarah Palin. Without asserting any facts, Palin pumps up the crowd with her anti-Obama rhetoric, which then can be reported as news on outlets including Fox, which employs her as a commentator. Again, wherever you stand on Obama, reality is being created by the echo chamber of the event, the coverage and the creation of news from the event and the coverage. This morning, Chris Wallace was interviewing Palin (again, a Fox employee) on the Fox Sunday talkshow.... If you repeat something often enough, it becomes important, and maybe even “true.” (See Christian Science Monitor coverage here.)


One more example: In today’s (Sunday 2/7) Salt Lake Tribune, columnist Peg McEntee addresses climate change as a “conspiracy theory”—NOT! (And cartoonist Pat Bagley, right, also focuses on this.) This is targeted at Utah state Rep. Mike Noel of Kanab, who thinks scientists, government officials and liberals are conspiring to force global cooling on us. Last year, Noel asked USU President Stan Albrecht to discipline some USU climate researchers because they had testified before state legislative panels about climate change (they believe it). Noel said these guys are on the state payroll, and shouldn’t be allowed to promote lies. (Noel later backed down). As McEntee reports in her column, Noel and others who see global warming as a fake left-wing conspiracy (like Mr. Larsen from Smithfield, above; Gov. Gary Herbert also thinks humans have nothing to do with climate change) think this is an effort at world population control. Bills are pending before the Utah Legislature to shut down the federal Environmental Protection Agency until “a full and independent investigation of the climate data conspiracy and global warming science can be substantiated.”

So this “truthiness” stuff is complicated. How do we “know” what we think we know? We see letters like Mr. Larsen’s or columns like McEntee’s, or cartoons like Pat Bagley’s, or coverage of rhetorical entertainment like Sarah Palin’s or Glenn Beck’s or Rachel Maddow’s (or Jon Stewart’s!). Yikes! How to decide what to believe? See how important it is to be critically thinking media smarties???

Keep thinking, Smarties.

Dr. Ted
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