Tag: facts

Checking multiple sources

facts is facts

One of this librarian’s curses is that he ends up checking multiple sources of information. There’s a lot of misinformation, disinformation, and mythology out there. The process of vetting can be exhausting, and occasionally even I can miss a few.

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary from 2022 to 2025, noted, in a political context, “facts and figures alone no longer carry the weight they once did. There was a time when people would absorb accurate information presented clearly through official channels, like the White House press briefing. They might disagree on what it meant, they might challenge certain points, but it wasn’t automatically treated as spin.

“Today, anyone can be a content creator, producing videos, podcasts and memes with subjective, sometimes bogus interpretations of the news. Many Americans now get their news only from outlets that confirm their political leanings. Social media algorithms clearly favor outrage and certainty, not accuracy.”

This brings me to America.gov, which the regime touts. “It uses SI to find and explain information from official government sources. SI can make mistakes, so check the sources included with each answer before making an important decision. To report a problem, select the feedback button below the answer and describe what was incorrect or out of date.” I am… wary.

Samuel Clemens

Of course, mis/disinformation is not a new phenomenon. Some of it is fairly innocuous. In Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Substack, he noted that “Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see” was attributed to Mark Twain (1835–1910), an American writer. “The Center for Mark Twain Studies, which has a section titled ‘The Apocryphal Twain,’ states, ‘The Occam’s Razor of Twain attribution is: If the aphorism in question indicates a sentimental, nostalgic, or otherwise optimistic attitude towards humanity, it probably didn’t come from Twain.” That site, which investigated the quote’s origin, says it appears to derive from an 1857 aphorism by New York writer Christian Nestell Bovee, although its wording evolved over time. It wasn’t attributed to Twain until decades after his death.” 

Some news coverage is unbalanced. I continue to find Ground News useful. FOTUS personally told an aide to use taxpayer money for TV ads praising him. But right-leaning media was less likely to pick up the story. You can find your own examples, I’m sure.

Librarians

The NYT has a great story. “We asked dozens of librarians about America’s libraries — what they provide, what they need to survive. This year, Americans are marking the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding. The nation’s librarians are celebrating a milestone too: the 150th birthday of the modern American library.”

One of many pull quotes that jumped out at me. “The misconception about libraries to me is that they feel irrelevant because we’re in a digital information age, but I would say they’re more relevant now than ever before because we’re conflating content with information and information with knowledge.”

I was on a panel about librarians, and specifically the documentary The Librarians in February 2026. So I REALLY try to be honest and correct.

Facts

Sure, I have biases. When late-night host Jimmy Kimmel “offered a deeply emotional reflection about Pope Leo XIV, describing him not simply as a religious leader, but as a voice of compassion and humanity in a world struggling with conflict, suffering, and division,” I could relate. 

But as someone said, “facts is facts,” and I don’t mean “alternative facts.” Real data brings real joy. When I watch the Inside JEOPARDY interviews, especially with the multi-game champions, they express the goodies in sharing accurate information. I definitely get that. 

Flat-earthers, Social Security, facts

“The sun is not as far away as we’ve been told, nor is the moon.”

flat earthThis guy from my hometown wrote 300 words on the travesty of the Republicans, who, after cutting taxes for the wealthy, plan to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. “We are talking old folk and the disabled who are living on so few bucks they are cutting their prescription pills in half to get through the month.”

He pointed out that we’ve seen this movie before. It’s a rerun from 1981 under Reagan in 1981, and income inequality has ballooned since then. Other advanced countries provide better pensions, nearly complete healthcare “and at a cost half of the inflated American prices.”

I wrote, cheekily, “Sorry, it sounds as though you are using facts. This is painfully obvious to you and me, but I’m having my doubts to convince those who bought the Kool-Aid.” He thought I ought to expand on this somehow, but it’s difficult. The hardly liberal Forbes magazine notes Social Security Does Not Add To The Federal Deficit.

When I watched CBS News Sunday Morning recently and there are flat-earthers trying to launch themselves into space in order to see if there’s REALLY curvature beyond the horizon because it looks flat to them, it pains me. Somewhere along the way, “Question authority”, a mantra of my growing up period, became “Doubt everything.”

As the story notes, they believe the “Moon is only a few miles up. We’ve been lied to on such a massive scale!” Photos of the Earth from space are “Completely and utterly false.” And “The sun is not as far away as we’ve been told, nor is the moon. They’re probably about the same size…”

“In short, Flat Earthers don’t believe much of anything unless they see it for themselves. They believe NASA is just part of a broad conspiracy.”

There was a period when you could have a fruitful debate about the philosophy of government, economic policy, scientific theory, differences in religion, and the like. But I wouldn’t argue with some people, who are non-historic, anti-science. There is just no point.

Worse, because of the “false equivalence” belief that even the most inane theories are somehow equally valid, it adds to the noise on social media.

Correcting v. convincing

I jumped all over the presentation, calling it sham science, and pointing out the many ways in which it was confusing or obscuring the truth. Expecting to be met with nodding approval, I instead faced several annoyed looks and the strong feeling that I was being wished out of the room.

Arthur@AmeriNZ noted his seventh Twitterversary this spring, which he Tweeted then posted it to Facebook and Google+. How terribly meta.

Then Facebook went and spoiled it all when someone said something stupid.

It was no one I knew—a friend of a friend—but it was such utter delusional nonsense that my jaw literally (yes, literally) dropped (remaining literally attached to my head, fortunately). It doesn’t matter who said what to whom about what; suffice it to say, the person’’s comment was factually wrong, silly, and… delusional.

It was an outrage! Errors needed to be corrected, truth and facts needed to be asserted! So, I did — nothing.

Time was, I would have jumped in to fight for truth and facts, but not today. Continue reading “Correcting v. convincing”