“I’ve examined what happens to audiences — that is, we ordinary people — in a world of unprecedented media choice: we begin to select our reality according to our biases, and we interpret evidence (such as photos and videos) and solicit expertise in a way that pleases us.” So writes Farhad Manjoo in his book True Enough, which documents how the internet has eroded the standards for informational accuracy.
Using case studies from the news, Manjoo points to selection bias, perception bias, and lack of context as factors influencing the public’s persistent wrongness about some issues, especially politics. He overviews convincing research and explains that if you interpreted things based on first impressions, you would frequently misunderstand complex events. Which is exactly what happens! We listen to an ostensible expert’s credentials, respond to their personal charisma or lack of it, and decide whether to believe them over the other guy based on nothing more than charm.
The problem is, you can’t know what you don’t know. (Thanks, Rumsfeld.) If you’re not an expert in a certain field, you can’t tell who’s a real authority and who is inflating their own importance and credibility.
What’s ironic is that I believe Manjoo’s assessment of this whole situation — not because I’ve independently combed through the documents and consulted other authorities on the topics at hand. I believe him because he writes well, his ideas appeal to common sense, and he’s a columnist for The New York Times. The back of the book carries praise from another journalist and an academic, whose opinions I also did not independently verify.
I find Manjoo’s work compelling for exactly the reasons he cites as being behind many scandals, conspiracies, and other misconceptions.