Danelle Stone
Professor Bleck
English 101
25 July 2008

•In chapter five, Jackson and Jamieson maintain a simple and important message: facts matter. Being knowledgeable of facts can save both your life and money.
•Daniel Bullock, a California physician, hated paying his taxes. Therefore, he fell into a scam where someone provided him with the information on how to evade taxes (Bullock thought that this person had discovered a legal way of avoiding taxes). He was eventually turned in but did not receive prison time. Bullock’s story shows that taking in information without challenging it can have severe consequences.
•Jackson and Jamieson used the phrase “grey goose effect” to describe how people tend to buy the brand rather than the actual product. People think that higher-priced goods are better quality than lower-priced goods, but this is not always the case. Grey Goose and Smirnoff are both types of vodka, but their brand has nothing to do with what the bottles contain.
•Getting the facts wrong can have grave consequences on one’s health. Jackson and Jamieson provide the reader with an example of a man named Chuck Hysong, a cancer patient, who used a product called Optimizer ENG-C. The man who sold this product to Hysong had little faith in doctors and believed in “alternative” medicine. The man claimed that his product had a “100 percent cure rate for bone cancer.” However, Hysong ended up in the hospital after taking this product and died three months later.
•Jackson and Jamieson reveal that misinformation about our bodies and health can also have numerous consequences. In 1997, women were more likely to name breast cancer as the leading killer of women, but this has never been true. The fact is that women are more likely to die from heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and emphysema. Therefore, women are taking precautions for what they believe is their leading killer rather than focusing on other ailments that are a bigger threat to their health.
•“The gap between perception and facts” is referred to by Jackson and Jamieson as “dangerous ignorance.” A study was conducted to find out how often teens thought their friends and peers were having sex (and how often they actually were having sex). Ultimately, many teens thought that there was more sex taking place than there actually was. If teens knew that the majority of their peers were not having sex, teens might not feel so pressured to engage in sexual activity.
•“Dangerous ignorance” is also an issue in regards to historical facts. Hubert O’Gorman conducted a study which showed that only one in three white Southerners said that they favored segregation. Therefore, the majority of whites in the South actually favored desegregation, but they thought that they were the minority. These people might have spoken up about their true feelings towards segregation if they had known they were the majority group which could have ultimately changed history.
•Getting the facts wrong can also lead to a war based on false beliefs such as the war in Iraq. Many Americans were convinced that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 9/11 terrorist attacks and had access to weapons of mass destruction, but it was later proved that he had nothing to do with the attacks and had destroyed his weapons years ago.
•Military commanders consider it their duty to deceive the enemy and the public in order to win battles and save the lives of their troops. Sir Frank Cooper deceived the British public by stating they would be using a “hit and run” attack on the Argentine forces, but they actually used a completely different tactic to throw off the Argentine defenses.
•Jackson and Jamieson have provided the reader with all of the tools to recognize spin, but in chapter seven they give the reader insight into where one can find the facts to save their life and money.
•The Internet is the solution for remaining unspun, but it can also contain piles of garbage. Therefore, use the Internet as a resource for facts but always do extra research to make sure what you are reading/seeing/hearing is the truth.
•One Internet hoax Jackson and Jamieson bring to the reader’s attention regards Oliver North and his warning to Congress around 1987 that Osama bin Laden is a dangerous man. In this email that multiple Americans received and forwarded, North recommended that an assassin team should eliminate bin Laden before he strikes America (9/11). This message also stated that Al Gore was the man who interviewed North. All of this turned out to be twisted, but many people believed what they were reading and forwarded it to their friends, co-workers, and family members which spread the nonsense. If people would have researched the information on the Internet, they would have realized that this was a hoax.
•Jackson and Jamieson provide tools which will help the reader find trustworthy information on the Internet. One should consider the source when locating information (the source was anonymous in the Oliver North hoax). Look for sources with authority such as government websites (dot-gov), academic websites (dot-edu), and news websites (www.cnn.com). However, the authors advise using common sense in regards to government sites and be wary of academic sites because information might not be accurate (might be the reflection of one professor rather than the whole organization). Blogs can be useful but biased because they might be based on the belief of their creator. Always verify information!!
•“Due diligence”: (ask these questions when locating information or viewing a product) What are they selling? What’s their reputation? Can I verify? Who’s behind it? Who’s paying? Who are the people? “That means checking out the management and finances before you buy.”
•Factcheck.org favorites: www.cdc.gov, www.ConsumerReports.org, www.opensecrets.org, www.cbo.gov, www.kff.org, www.bls.gov, www.census.gov, www.eia.doe.gov, www.quackwatch.org, www.gao.gov.