File this under the “insufficiently-developed sense of their own irony” category .. from the intrepid U.S. State Department, a handy guide for identifying misinformation and propaganda, and a clue into their establishment of a so-called “counter-misinformation team” sometime in 2005. Try to contain your laughter. The publication essentially blacklists a number of prominent internet sites as consistent sources of misinformation.
Here’s your Top Ten:
1. Rense Program www.rense.com
2. Roads to Iraq www.roadstoiraq.com
3. Vialls Investigations www.vialls.com
4. Al Jazeera aljazeera.com
5. Conspiracy Planet www.conspiracyplanet.com
6. Jihad Unspun jihadunspun.com
7. International Action Center www.iacenter.org
8. Free Arab Voice www.freearabvoice.org
9. George W. Bush – Terrorist in the White House nogw.com
10. Islam Memo (in Arabic) www.islammemo.cc
The State Department further suggests the following criteria to tell if a story is true:
- Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?
- Does the story fit the pattern of an “urban legend?â€Â
- Does the story contain a shocking revelation about a highly controversial issue?
- Is the source trustworthy?
- What does further research tell you?
… offering this advice up to Regular Joes and Reporters alike. Has anyone ever heard of Journalism school? High School Civics classes?
In modern politics, it is a consistent rhetorical moan of the conservative right that they have no voice, that they are revolutionary victims of massive and widespread disinformation campaigns by everyone from other religions to a liberal media bias to educators and philosophers. Some of this may be true, however in recent past it’s been difficult to raise a questioning voice against the Roveian wave of disinformation, litigation, and treachery.
I have a handy tool that I use for identifying misinformation: if it’s coming from the Bush Administration, it’s a lie.
I have to question your veracity here. Obviously on the Left, you published a single unsubstantiated email allegedly received by Lipton and forwarded to you by the Dixie Chicks manager, Simon Renshaw, claiming the Free Republic had orchestrated an effective national boycott of the Dixie Chicks. Even after a congressional hearing on this subject, not one person was found guilty of anything other than listening to their listener’s and sponsor’s opinions. You subsequently did nothing to correct the unsubstantiated claim. How can you expect to be taken seriously on this subject when you don’t even own up to your own propagandizing? The bar needs to be raised by everyone, else we will all drown in the new “disinformation” age. Can you “man up”?
Ian, actually some of above sites do look like they’re run by conspiracy nuts. On identifying misinformation: check out this interesting project, which is essentially a collection of news reported by media at various times, organized into timelines by topic. It’s known that a lot of intelligence is collected simply from mass media by tying stories together: this is the same idea. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=iraq_project
Takes hell of a lot of reading though..