"Liar, liar, pants on fire" - is your candidate telling the truth?

Winnisquam Echo, October 23, 2008

 

As the campaigns make their final mad dash for electoral victory on November 4, the airwaves

and our mailboxes are filled with eyebrow-raising claims and counter-claims.

 

Obama is a foreign-born Muslim. One hundred percent of McCain's ads have been negative. Obama

has never taken on his Democratic Party leadership on a single issue. McCain voted against funding

the troops.

 

The list of allegations goes on and on. But what’s true and what isn’t? How’s the average voter

supposed to separate fact from fiction when each campaign has a clear partisan agenda?

 

You could of course rely on the statements coming from your preferred candidate, or perhaps

your favorite newspaper, cable news channel, or website. But faith in the objectivity of the

mainstream media is at an all-time low.

 

The simple truth is that no single source can be trusted to have an exclusive hold on reality. So if

you want the straight dope, you’ll have to do some digging yourself. This smacks of work, even the

sustained application of critical thinking skills.

 

But the country is in the middle of an historic economic crisis and the stakes for our future could not

be higher. The very least we owe our nation is to be as well-informed as possible. Even if you’re

among the 90 percent of voters who’ve already committed to a particular candidate, surely

citizenship requires a fair hearing of what the other side has to say.

 

Fortunately, we have not been left alone in the fight against spin and bias. Believe it or not,

there are non-partisan sources of information which strive to be as objective and impartial as

possible.

 

Two of the best known neutral sites seeking to provide a reality check on the claims of national

political figures are FactCheck.org and PolitiFact.org. The former is run by Annenberg Political Fact

Check, a non-profit consumer advocate for voters. The group accepts no funding from corporations,

labor unions, political parties, lobbyists or lobbying organizations. The latter is a project of

Congressional Quarterly and the St. Petersburg Times in Florida, with a unique “Truth-O-Meter”

rating scale running from “True” to “Pants on Fire.”

 

But you have other options as well. On the assumption that given two competing claims, the truth

generally lies somewhere in between, voters can also venture over to “the other side” to see how

things look from a different perspective.

 

If nothing else, this may put a human face on political opponents who are all too often

demonized, caricatures instead of complex flesh and blood individuals with good intentions.

 

So, if you lean left, try watching Fox News for a few nights. Visit political blogs like The Daily Dish,

Hot Air, or Power Line. Follow watchdog organizations that monitor liberal bias in the media such

as Accuracy in Media or the Media Research Center.

 

Likewise, if you lean right, spend a few hours watching MSNBC. Visit blogs like Daily Kos, the

Huffington Post, or Think Progress. The two main media watchdog groups, Media Matters for

America and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, are also worth your time.

 

(Links to all of these sites and more are available at splib.pbwiki.com, the Sanbornton Public

Library’s website.)

 

I guarantee you will learn new facts you didn’t know before, along with surprising

interpretations of acts already familiar to you – “surprising” enough to set your teeth on edge!

 

The famous economist, John Maynard Keynes, was once criticized for changing his mind. He

replied, “When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?” An impressive

example of open-mindedness indeed, but seeking out new facts and opinions alien to our way of

thinking doesn’t come easy to us. We instinctively seek information from sources that reflect

our own views back to us. We also have a natural tendency to dismiss information, whether

accurate or not, if it contradicts our deeply held beliefs.

 

Studies have even shown that the very act of correcting misinformation sometimes merely

reinforces those false beliefs.

 

But nonetheless, we still have an obligation to do our best to seek the truth and to listen

with an open mind to those who disagree with us -- especially so, I would argue, during this

critical time in our nation’s history.

 

America is it at its best when we pull together. Maybe we don’t have to hold hands. But at

least we can stand side by side and try to resist the temptation to hold our noses. If recent

history has taught us nothing else, facts matter. Reality eventually catches up with propaganda.

So don’t take the easy way out. The truth is out there.

 

 

Links to websites mentioned in this article:

 

These represent a minute sample of the many thought-provoking websites available to

you.

 

Please contact us if you would like some guidance in exploring the political online

universe.

 

Conservative / Right-Leaning Blogs

The Daily Dish - http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Hot Air - http://hotair.com

Power Line - http://www.powerlineblog.com

 

Conservative Media Watchdogs

Accuracy in Media - http://www.aim.org

Media Research Center - http://www.mediaresearch.org

 

 

Liberal / Left-Leaning Blogs

Daily Kos - http://www.dailykos.com

The Huffington Post - http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Think Progress - http://thinkprogress.org

 

Liberal Media Watchdogs

Media Matters for America - http://mediamatters.org

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting - http://www.fair.org