Finding Fact in Political Debate

Abstract

Politicians seldom tell outright lies, but they often mislead voters intentionally with statements that use any of several techniques. These includeusing statistics that may be arithmetically correct but that give voters a false picture of reality, leaving out key facts and fudging about unstated assumptions, and so forth. The public should expect news reporters to catch these tricks, but too often the misleading statements are merely quoted along with a comment from the opposing candidate in the classic “he-said-she-said” style. Both reporters and voters need to be more aware of the ways in which politicians try to manipulate them. This article offers seven principles for sifting through misleading rhetoric to find the essential facts and gives examples from the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns.