Navigating through campaign propaganda

Election time tends to confuse people. Voters get so lost in the media’s haze of propaganda and misconstrued information about candidates that they often no longer know who or what to believe.

 

The truth is that it’s hard to find the real truth because untruths and bias are everywhere. They can be found in debates, speeches, campaign ads, radio talk shows, TV news, blogs, magazines and the list can go on and on. This can be awfully confusing and damaging to anyone, especially undecided voters, who can be easily swayed one way or another by a single piece of information about a candidate.

 

There is hope though for those who want to navigate through the propaganda to find the real truth. Luckily, there are a few sources that work to separate fact from falsity surrounding the candidates.

 

One is politifact.com. This nonpartisan website’s mission is to, “help voters separate fact from falsehood in the 2008 presidential campaign.” The St. Petersburg Times of Florida and Congressional Quarterly of Washington, D.C. run the site. Journalists and researchers from each of the two news sources work to research the facts claimed in debates, speeches, TV ads, interviews and any other source of campaign information.

 

Campaign claims and attacks are constantly investigated and results are updated daily on the website to ensure accurate analysis. It is built around the “Truth-O-Meter,” a scale used to rate the truth behind candidates’ particular claims and attacks. It has six rankings: “True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True, False and Pants on Fire.” The last on the list represents the most farfetched of lies.

           

The site includes detailed explanations of the facts and analysis behind their rankings. It offers a history of the candidates’ record of truth and lie-telling. Also, it features a tool called the “Flip-O-Meter.” This judges whether a candidate has changed his or stance on an issue and the degree to which it has changed.

 

Another credible source is factcheck.org. It is a likewise nonpartisan group working to achieve the same goal as politifact.com. The project is officially known as the Annenberg Political Fact Check, and it is run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

 

It has a number of functions and features, from showcases on the reality behind a variety of attack ads, to lists of how many times and on which issues candidates have misled voters. All of the information the site presents is based on thorough research and analysis conducted by highly esteemed journalists.

 

In conjunction with Fact Check, the Seattle P.I. evaluates debates citing factcheck.org to contrast the truth and falsehood in what the candidates say. It serves for a revealing reflection of the candidates.

 

Debates, columns, TV news, blogs and even outraged radio talk show hosts are interesting and often important to heed during election season. To find the true facts though, and know what to really believe, people need to dig a little deeper.