Book Review: "'Blur' Brings Into Sharp Focus Challenge Of Finding The Truth"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/books-poetry/book-reviews/article297416.ece

'Blur' brings into sharp focus the challenge of finding the truth

By Gene Krzyzynski
NEWS BOOK REVIEWER
Published:
January 2, 2011, 8:09 AM


We can't say we weren't warned.

It has been 26 years since Neil Postman, an illustrious graduate of Fredonia State College, wrote his masterwork, "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business." Yet here we are -- in the Age of O'Reilly, Beck, Olbermann and Stewart -- having fused, and confused, news and entertainment worse than ever.

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BLUR: HOW TO KNOW WHAT'S TRUE IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION OVERLOAD

By Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel

Bloomsbury; 240 pages, $26

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With the likes of Postman, Orwell, Chayefsky and McLuhan long gone, the challenge of trying to save the citizenry from itself has been accepted by journalistic eminences Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. "Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload," their third collaboration in hardcover, is one of the most insightful books of this nascent millennium. What, after all, is more meaningful than discerning what's true?

As a means of escape from the media's fog machines and flamethrowers, the authors supply the reader with what amounts to a miner's helmet for the mind. Flipping the switch on its lantern, they direct the high beam toward the best obtainable version of the truth. The overcaffeination never cools down in the scorching atmospherics of the 24-hour news cycle. All too often, truth and untruth are given equal weight. The default setting tends to be dueling extremes, and anyone who's open-minded is left whirling like a gerbil in a wheel ... and getting nowhere fast.

So who's credible? Who isn't? Who verifies? Who doesn't? The authors set solid standards to help the reader cut through the junk journalism and find the facts. Especially useful are checklists "for becoming a more conscious and careful consumer of news," such as:

1. What kind of content am I encountering?

2. Is the information complete; and if not, what's missing?

3. Who or what are the sources, and why should I believe them?

4. What evidence is presented, and how is it tested or vetted?

5. What might be an alternative explanation or understanding?

6. Am I learning what I need to?

Apathy isn't an option. That is, if we are to obtain "real news," which veteran journalist and author Richard Reeves defined as "the news we need to keep our freedoms." (Freedom from warrantless wiretapping, for one.)

Those freedoms are refreshed (or enhanced or diminished) through elections, yet "Misinformation and the 2010 Election" -- a poll of 848 Americans conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, based at the University of Maryland, and Knowledge Networks -- found that during the just-completed political cycle, "9 in 10 voters said ... they encountered information they believed was misleading or false, with 56 percent saying this occurred frequently."

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Kovach and Rosenstiel emphasize we have a right to expect our news organizations to consistently meet eight responsibilities: authenticator, sense maker, investigator, witness bearer, empowerer, smart aggregator, forum organizer and role model. And the public needs to hold the messengers' feet to the fire.

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[EFerrari]

1. There is no BookTv segment.

Which fits with my :tinfoilhat: sense that Brian Lamb is a Pod Person. But there is a five minute interview here:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Authorsof

[snot]

2. Good to know about. For what it's worth, today I came across the "25 Rules of Disinformation" --

and found them extremely helpful, in a related vein, at http://www.congregator.net/pages/truth.html . (Like, almost all of them are currently being used against Wikileaks.)

E.g.,

1. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don't discuss it -- especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it's not reported, it didn't happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.

* * * * *
2. Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the 'How dare you!' gambit.

* * * * *
3. Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method which works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such 'arguable rumors'. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a 'wild rumor' from a 'bunch of kids on the Internet' which can have no basis in fact.

Etc.