unSpun

by Brooks Jackson

and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

 

Through print, TV, and the Internet, Americans are bombarded daily with mixed messages, half-truths, misleading statements, and out-and-out fabrications masquerading as facts. The news media - once the vaunted watchdogs of the republic - are often too preoccupied by the latest fad diet or cable-news crime of the week to call these deceptions what they are.

 

UnSpun is the secret decoder ring for the twenty-first century world of disinformation. Written by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, founders of FactCheck.org (hailed by Time.com as "a blast of fresh air" and one of "25 Sites We Can't Live Without"), unSpun helps us spot deception, shows us how and why it works, and demonstrates how to drill down to factual bedrock.
From the creators of:

From the Authors

 

When we first set up FactCheck.org, it was little more than an afterthought. We intended to write a book about deceptive political advertising in the 2004 presidential election, and wanted to post some of our findings on the Internet while the campaign was unfolding, thinking they would be useful to political reporters and a few others.

 

To our amazement, the website found a huge audience. By Election Day 2004, FactCheck.org was being visited by hundreds of thousands of persons daily. Ordinary voters told us they were fed up with political spin. Hence this book.

 

UnSpun is about how to recognize and avoid deception, not just in politics but in commercial advertising and life in general. In it, we tell you how to debunk the malarkey for yourself, and get down to facts. We think everybody should be a FactChecker.

 

-- Brooks Jackson & Kathleen Hall Jamieson