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1-Page Summary of True Enough

Overview

Thanks to the Digital Revolution, media has changed drastically in recent years. Some changes have been good and some bad. Farhad Manjoo shows us how PR firms can use existing media outlets to manipulate people’s minds with false information, how news agencies are biased against certain pieces of news and how our preexisting beliefs affect the way we process new information.

There are four key points to this passage. The first point is that it’s much easier for people to manipulate what they say. Second, there are many ways in which people do this manipulation. Third, you’ll learn more about how people bend the truth and why they do it. Finally, you’ll also learn more about conspiracy theories and how they spread so quickly.

Big Idea #1: The media landscape has become fragmented, which makes it easier to spread misinformation.

Before the internet, information was disseminated by a few major news channels. These days, things are different.

Now that we have the internet, news and information is more readily available than ever before. We can get our news from many different sources, such as digital cameras, blogs and other online platforms. This allows people to spread their own opinions, even if they’re wrong. In 2004 during the presidential election in America, a right-wing group called Swift Boat Veterans tried to discredit John Kerry’s war record by saying he wasn’t a good soldier or didn’t deserve his medals of honor. However, there were many veteran testimonies and documents that proved otherwise

Although their information was false, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were able to take down John Kerry. At first, no respectable news channels would listen to them and they didn’t receive any coverage at a press conference. However, they kept spreading their message relentlessly until finally it got mainstream attention.

In 2004, a group of veterans who served in Vietnam protested the Democratic candidate John Kerry. They went on right-wing talk shows and promoted their website. There, they offered an open letter to be signed and forwarded to friends and relatives. This eventually snowballed enough to get picked up by the mainstream media, which changed public opinion about Kerry’s involvement in the war. In the end, George W. Bush won the election by only two percentage points. The veterans might have swung that result with their misinformation. The internet is now so accessible that we no longer need mass media to change a public opinion. Feats like this are even easier now than they were then because of social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter

Big Idea #2: Our preconceived ideas affect our perception, and even video evidence can’t always change that.

There are many people taking pictures and videos at any given event. These materials have been posted online, but they don’t necessarily make us agree on what really happened.

Even though a lot of people witnessed the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there is still confusion about what happened. For example, 42% of Americans believe that the government did not investigate it properly. Some people think that missiles were used in addition to airplanes.

Many people believe that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, even though experts have proven this theory to be false. The footage of the planes hitting the buildings is not enough evidence to convince everyone that it happened.

We can maintain our uncertainty even after seeing clear evidence because of preexisting beliefs. A good example of this is the 1951 football game between Princeton and Dartmouth. Both fans perceived foul play from their opponents, as well as themselves, although there was none in the footage they watched.