Examples of Truthiness at Work

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(Posted on JCOM 2010 blogsite 2/7/2010)

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 (or see it pasted below). 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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Gore & Co. distorting facts

Logan Herald-Journal

Saturday, February 6, 2010 2:55 AM CST

With all the recent “hoopla” about global warming, recent factual reports show that the EPA accepted only two so-called analysis reports (one from some ice glacier climber and one from a student on his own opinions) that global warming exists. Other reports, from left-wing radicals (Al Gore), really have distorted the facts.

Remember Mother Nature will do her thing regardless of what others believe. On Dec. 23, 2009, an advertisement on CBS radio, as well as NPR radio, reported that Santa’s elves told Santa that global warming was so real that Santa and the North Pole will no longer exist due to global warming. Imagine Santa’s surprise — this crushing childhood fantasies.

Al Gore and his self-appointed group should be ashamed of themselves. I submit that Al Gore had a troubled childhood.

This is purely unadulterated “horse puckey.” These clowns are in it for the money at yours and my tax money expense.

Yes, Christmas is way too commercialized and the real meaning of Christmas is gone. But, to victimize Santa at the expense of “kooks” like Al Gore and his cronies is absurd to say the least.

With the recent revealing reports of false documents of global warming, Al Gore and his pals should be “cut off” from our taxpayers’ funding. Al Gore should be required to spend two winters in Cache Valley and then be exiled to the coldest part of the world forever with no modern conveniences. End of story. What a savings to us taxpayers.

Think back to TV ads. Butter vs. margarine. “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” She will do as she pleases.

Climate change is a scam at our expense. Believe it. You far-out loons are crazy.

Russ Larsen
Smithfield