Gorsuch and Matlock 1
Ryanne Gorsuch and Melanie Matlock
Mrs. Clesson
AP Lang 9:00
2-9-09
Jackson, Brooks, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. “ ‘Tall’ Coffees and Assault Weapons” unSpun: Finding Facts in a World of [Disinformation]. New York: Random, 2007: 43-62.
Trick #5: The Average Bear
Sometimes the “average” bears watching, because the average is not always the same as the typical. An example of this is a small town of a thousand people, all of whom are average except one very rich resident. Everyone gets a tax cut of $10 except for the very rich man who gets a tax cut of $90,010. If you then find the average of all of the tax cuts, the average works out to be $100 per resident. This shows that the average is ten times greater than the typical.
This trick is very common in federal income, because there will be big reductions for the few elite people and it will make the average much higher than what is typical for the average working American. Also, politicians will sometimes use the average to make things sound better. For instance, announcing that the national average of something has gone up will make them look better because people don’t realize that the word average is not the same as typical.
The “average” bears watching because one number does not normally tell the whole story, especially with something complicated like the U.S. economy or the federal tax system.
Trick #6: The Baseline Bluff
The baseline bluff is a favorite of politicians in the United States, but also used in other countries. Essentially what it means is that if you are running for an office and you are planning on making a budget for something larger than your competitor, you might say that they are going to make a cut in a certain area. While they might not actually be making a cut, you say they are because compared to what you would do they are.
An example of a baseline bluff is when, in Britain’s 2005 elections, the Labour party plastered yellow “Warning” posters all over Britain. They were claiming that the Tories will cut money from public services while in reality the Tories planned to increase spending. However the increase that they were proposing was much smaller than what the Labour party planned, so they called it a cut. When all is said and done, the Tories were planning a smaller increase rather than a cut.
When you hear a politician talking about a “cut” in a program, ask yourself, “a cut compared to what?”
Trick #7: The Literally True Falsehood
Many times people will choose words that are deceptive without being technically false. Clever deceivers can try to mislead is without actually lying. One very common example of this is in food product when something says “reduced fat.” While it might be true that there is less fat, that does not mean that there is low fat, and many people don’t realize that.
One great example of a literally true falsehood is when the KFC Corporation tried to pass off fried chicken as health food. They had a commercial where a lady sets a bucket of KFC in front of her husband saying “remember how we talked about eating better? Well it starts today.” They then support this claim by saying that two original recipe chicken breasts have less fat then a BK Whopper, which is technically true, but not by much. The whopper had 43 grams of total fat while the chicken breasts had only 38 grams. However it also doesn’t tell you that the chicken also has three times more cholesterol, twice as much sodium, and more calories.
It always benefits to pay close attention to vague phrases and carefully worded claims, because people are not always saying what you think they are saying, and they might be leaving things out.
Trick #8: The implied Falsehood
It is common for advertisers to imply things that they can not legally say. An example of this is seen in a product called the Ab Force belt. This product caused electrically stimulated muscle twitches around the stomach. Many replicas were made and commercials were made that claimed it caused people to lose fat and reduce their size by inches. Soon there were commercials that claimed you could lose 4 inches in 30 days, or get rock hard abs without exercise. The FTC got the blatantly false ads off of TV, however the original refused to pay anything saying that his ads had never specifically made claims. This was true, because all that he had done was shown pictures of very fit people and viewers implied that the product he was selling was the cause.
When you see or hear something that is strongly implied but not directly stated, it is smart to question why the marketer has to say things between the lines. Often there is a very good reason, and that is that what the speaker wants you to believe is not true.
Word Count: 824
Original Word Count: around 6,400