At work, I sit near a couple of wackos who hourly ... minutely ... regurgitate the right-wing wackiness they apparently absorbed that morning on the way to work. Their discussions are long and loud and have a certitude that ignores any depth in the subject matter (e.g.: the recent riots in France prove that it's an inferior country to America, period).
I was speaking with an ex-co-worker at the Octoberfestivus party this past Friday, and they commented that they listen to talk radio in order to hear the talking points that are being disseminated through the airwaves and that will inevitably be parroted later by the Sunday talking heads. It's all too much noise-to-signal for me, but I understand the impulse.
I had this idea--that may already exist or may simply be unnecessary--that a wiki should be created to address and counter the quick-forming talking points as fast as they appear. Often, they only last a few weeks (e.g. the short-lived global struggle against violent extremism) before they're either squelched by Jon Stewart or absorbed as unchallenged truth due to the difficulties of disproving them; forgotten in the mainstream but held as unimpeachable to those in the know. Many of the wacko assertions are baseless hypothesis that may require statistical data to truly disprove (such as the now-dead assertion that most of the people who stayed behind in New Orleans were criminals and drug addicts). The assertions need only be spoken to have weight, but disproving them takes effort.
It seems like the very existence of the Internet generally and Wikipedia specifically are sufficient to stop this shallow ignorance, but it's sometimes easier to ignore ignorance than take the time to dig up the truth. I was recently friend-spammed with a mass-emailing containing "proof" that social security is an evil created by the ghost of Democrats past. It contained a collection of assertions with no citations: either believe it or sit down for an hour or so of research. Luckily, the email had been copy-and-pasted so many times that someone had already addressed the lies complete with citations (alas, the information in the link was disparaged when I passed it on because, despite the citations to US law, it was found on a Democratic Web site).
So yeah, the information is there, but it'd be nice if it were collected in one place, mapped to the simple, simplistic assertions that seem to sprout too quickly. I may be just lazy, and I may be thinking of the idea in too one-sided a manner (there are certainly wacko liberal ideas to be countered).
Finally, here's the information I found when I first heard that New Orleans survivors were being labeled as drug-addicted thugs:
So, in an absurdly worst-case scenario, only 20% of those who stayed could be the societal miscreants that they were being labeled. It ain't rocket-science, but you have to have a certain amount of time on your hands to decide to look that crap up. Wouldn't it be nice it it were addressed definitively in one place?
I agree with your site idea. I've been looking for a while for a site that contains all big/small political issues and has the un-biased position each party takes. I doubt Democrats or Republicans would ever support anything like this, because it would probably make people realize that their beliefs align with neither party. It would probably cause support for one of the third parties (libertarian, green, etc...) or cause a whole new party to be created. Either way, it would undoubtedly benefit the American people.
Posted by: dpb at November 9, 2005 09:20 AMI would say that FactCheck.org and (the old) Spinsanity do this, but they seem to address more the statements of public individuals and corporations. The widely-distributed statements in the street (like the ones above about France or Social Security or New Orleans) need to be addressed as well.
Posted by: sstrader at November 9, 2005 02:38 PMI would say that MediaMatters.org is a good place to go as well. They target where most the source of this regurgitation comes from and can easily be parsed into counter talking points that I'm guessing will leave most of the parrots staring at each other.
The direct challenges to O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, et. al. I find to be triumphantly refreshing...refreshing to know that someone is out there putting their subscription to Lexis-Nexis to good use.
It's truly amazing to see a startling amount of intellectual dishonesty that exists out there in the public forum.
Posted by: Mason at November 9, 2005 06:35 PMI thought I would provide a some examples of why I like MediaMatters.org.
Limbaugh recently said that the 9th district in California had the worst record of overturned rulings, thus it is concluded that they are renegade and don't follow precendent (i.e. their "liberal" of course!). Well MediaMatters countered with some statistics that shows this isn't necessarily the case.
Another good example of statistical challenges to popular assertions that liberal judges are the most "activist" judges (see Schiavo) proves exactly the opposite. Judges that are considered "conservative" and therefore less-inclined to challenge congressional legislation are the judges who have ruled against Congress more times than any other judge. Right there in convenient (copy and pastable) spreadsheet format MediaMatters outlines this trend.
I would provide links but...well...I don't want to be called a fool by your PHP script. ;)
Posted by: Mason at November 9, 2005 06:42 PMMason, MediaMatters.org along with the others are nice, but don't you often encounter assertions (New Orleans?) that aren't addressed there? Wouldn't a publicly collected index help?
Posted by: sstrader at November 10, 2005 08:50 AMOne other blog that I really like is www.talkingpointsmemo.com. Not a media watch site, but he does cover media falsehoods.
Posted by: Snehal at November 10, 2005 03:46 PMHey Snehal!
Scott, what would be the proper mode of aggregation? In other words, what methodolgy would you apply and how would it be tagged, processed and filed? It seems there are plenty of misinformative bits out there. Where would one start?
In the case New Orleans example, it started from a statement by Bill O'Reilly and in my vain attempts to demonstrate the man was an idiot for saying that "many, many, many" of the people left behind in New Orleans were criminals, my dad's response was something like "he's not that far off the mark is he?" Thus my feeling that O'Reilly's assertion was prima facie ridiculous lead to desperate searches to categorically break down and demonstrate the falsity of his statement.
That's where you stepped in and saved the day. ;) I can't say that the point was taken by the target of my effort but it least it's filed away in my head and it's documented. That leads to the more serious issue: in spite of the evidence, people CHOOSE not to process this information. The obstinance is baffling if not dangerous. It's exactly why Fox has enjoyed the success that it has. People gravitate to the news they want to hear...not to critical analysis. Maybe an oversimplification but I think there is some truth in that.
If it's the daily junk on talk shows that feeds the shallow conversations at the water cooler, MediaMatters does a good job of meeting this stuff head on (releasing up to 5 or more articles a day on various inaccuracies).
I'm not really sure how much more organized or effective this could be (beyond the dogged tenacity approach of MediaMatters.org).
Posted by: Mason at November 11, 2005 02:15 AMMason, filing something away in your head and presenting it to a couple of people is the *worst* situation to be in. (I first want to say that the New Orleans answer could've probably been better, but let's use it as a social model.) If it's filed away, no one else can look it up and no one else can correct it. I brought up the New Orleans story because it seems that there are many theories passed around that are "fringe" but popular, and that they may not be getting addressed.
Snopes and The Skeptic's Dictionary are good examples of non-political debunking of a sort, and the Talk.Origins Archive is great for questions on the evolution debate. In any of those, you can look up by name or topic (e.g. "Cokelore" or "Age of the Earth"). I think that a similar grouping of political subjects might be similarly helpful. Rather that Googling the world or searching the the above-referenced political sites, you could look under a tagged entry: "New Orleans." I'm not sure about aggreggation or methodology or processes. I'm simply at the point where I feel that the coverage and simplicity that could be there is not. Yes: all of the information is probably already out there, and sometimes it's just having the smarts to see through a deceptive argument (which I frequently don't have).
Maybe I'm just trying to see everything through a Web 2.0 lens with community and rewrites and discussions. You defined the model approach as "dogged tenacity" and then paired it with a site that does not and can not provide a great volume of articles--as if you do agree that there is a current limit. Wouldn't the organized tenacity of something like a wiki provide an opportunity to be more effective?
Or something like that.
Posted by: sstrader at November 11, 2005 08:33 AM